The Role of Gender and Familiarity in a Modified Version of the Almeria Boxes Room Spatial Task
ndividual factors like gender and familiarity can affect the kind of environmental representation that a person acquires during spatial navigation. Men seem to prefer relying on map-like survey representations, while women prefer using sequential route representations. Moreover, a good familiarity w...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | info:eu-repo/semantics/article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10835/12030 |
| _version_ | 1789406484756430848 |
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| author | Bocchi, Alessia Palmiero, Massimiliano Cimadevilla Redondo, Jose Manuel Tascón, Laura Nori, Raffaella Piccardi, Laura |
| author_facet | Bocchi, Alessia Palmiero, Massimiliano Cimadevilla Redondo, Jose Manuel Tascón, Laura Nori, Raffaella Piccardi, Laura |
| author_sort | Bocchi, Alessia |
| collection | DSpace |
| description | ndividual factors like gender and familiarity can affect the kind of environmental representation that a person acquires during spatial navigation. Men seem to prefer relying on map-like survey representations, while women prefer using sequential route representations. Moreover, a good familiarity with the environment allows more complete environmental representations. This study was aimed at investigating gender differences in two different object-position learning tasks (i.e., Almeria Boxes Tasks) assuming a route or a survey perspective also considering the role of environmental familiarity. Two groups of participants had to learn the position of boxes placed in a virtual room. Participants had several trials, so that familiarity with the environment could increase. In both tasks, the effects of gender and familiarity were found, and only in the route perspective did an interaction effect emerge. This suggests that gender differences can be found regardless of the perspective taken, with men outperforming women in navigational tasks. However, in the route task, gender differences appeared only at the initial phase of learning, when the environment was unexplored, and disappeared when familiarity with the environment increased. This is consistent with studies showing that familiarity can mitigate gender differences in spatial tasks, especially in more complex ones. |
| format | info:eu-repo/semantics/article |
| id | oai:repositorio.ual.es:10835-12030 |
| institution | Universidad de Cuenca |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | MDPI |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oai:repositorio.ual.es:10835-120302023-04-12T19:43:14Z The Role of Gender and Familiarity in a Modified Version of the Almeria Boxes Room Spatial Task Bocchi, Alessia Palmiero, Massimiliano Cimadevilla Redondo, Jose Manuel Tascón, Laura Nori, Raffaella Piccardi, Laura spatial navigation sex differences environment familiarity spatial learning spatial knowledge route survey virtual environments ndividual factors like gender and familiarity can affect the kind of environmental representation that a person acquires during spatial navigation. Men seem to prefer relying on map-like survey representations, while women prefer using sequential route representations. Moreover, a good familiarity with the environment allows more complete environmental representations. This study was aimed at investigating gender differences in two different object-position learning tasks (i.e., Almeria Boxes Tasks) assuming a route or a survey perspective also considering the role of environmental familiarity. Two groups of participants had to learn the position of boxes placed in a virtual room. Participants had several trials, so that familiarity with the environment could increase. In both tasks, the effects of gender and familiarity were found, and only in the route perspective did an interaction effect emerge. This suggests that gender differences can be found regardless of the perspective taken, with men outperforming women in navigational tasks. However, in the route task, gender differences appeared only at the initial phase of learning, when the environment was unexplored, and disappeared when familiarity with the environment increased. This is consistent with studies showing that familiarity can mitigate gender differences in spatial tasks, especially in more complex ones. 2021-07-22T08:32:14Z 2021-07-22T08:32:14Z 2021-05-22 info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2076-3425 http://hdl.handle.net/10835/12030 en https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/6/681 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess MDPI |
| spellingShingle | spatial navigation sex differences environment familiarity spatial learning spatial knowledge route survey virtual environments Bocchi, Alessia Palmiero, Massimiliano Cimadevilla Redondo, Jose Manuel Tascón, Laura Nori, Raffaella Piccardi, Laura The Role of Gender and Familiarity in a Modified Version of the Almeria Boxes Room Spatial Task |
| title | The Role of Gender and Familiarity in a Modified Version of the Almeria Boxes Room Spatial Task |
| title_full | The Role of Gender and Familiarity in a Modified Version of the Almeria Boxes Room Spatial Task |
| title_fullStr | The Role of Gender and Familiarity in a Modified Version of the Almeria Boxes Room Spatial Task |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Role of Gender and Familiarity in a Modified Version of the Almeria Boxes Room Spatial Task |
| title_short | The Role of Gender and Familiarity in a Modified Version of the Almeria Boxes Room Spatial Task |
| title_sort | role of gender and familiarity in a modified version of the almeria boxes room spatial task |
| topic | spatial navigation sex differences environment familiarity spatial learning spatial knowledge route survey virtual environments |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/10835/12030 |
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