Women tend to wander and take well-known routes to reach a familiar destination, while men prefer to take shortcuts and reach a destination more quickly, according to a new study.

Led by Alexander Boone, a graduate student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at UC Santa Barbara, the study is comprised of two computer-based experiments measuring navigation strategy and efficiency.

The paper is published in the Springer journal Memory & Cognition.

The Experiments

In the first experiment, Boone and his team asked 68 participants to familiarize themselves with the layout of a virtual maze.

The participants were told to take note of specific landmark objects before they had to navigate around the maze from various designated spots.

In addition, they had to complete questionnaires about their sense of direction, the strategies they use to navigate, and whether or not they play video games often.

The latter question was included to determine if difference in virtual navigation could be related to video game usage among the sexes.

In the second experiment, the researchers analyzed data from 72 participants involving different versions of the maze. One version included extra markings in the background, such as trees, while another version did not.

The researchers wanted to observe how men and women used these different landmarks to get around the maze.

The Findings

The researchers found that, on average, men tended to take shortcuts, while women were more likely to follow learned routes and wander. Because of this, men reached their goal locations more quickly than women.

“Overall, our research indicates that the sex difference in navigation efficiency is large, and is partly related to navigation strategy,” Boone said in a statement.

The researchers added that when a person wanders, it may suggest a lack of knowledge about specific landmarks in a location.

However, they also stressed that there was overlap across navigation strategies, and that all of the participants utilized at least one effective strategy.

“Just looking at the data again and I see that all participants took at least one shortcut in some capacity across the trials,” said Boone. “This highlights the fact that, while there was a general sex difference in navigational strategies, this is overlap.”

The researchers also found that video game use was a difficult aspect to measure because it depends on the types of games people play, and how they play them.

“For instance, Candy Crush might not require the same navigational skill as a campaign mode in a Call of Duty type game,” Boone said. “The distribution of video game play is skewed towards more time playing for men and women report less game play, but again these distributions overlapped. For instance, some women said they played a moderate amount to a lot of video games.”

Conclusion

Previous studies have alluded to the difference in navigation strategies between men and women, but the researchers were surprised by the amount of variation that people used to get around the maze.  

“Was I surprised about the sex difference? Not exactly. The wider literature suggests that we would have found this. Was I surprised about the complexity and variation in the routes that people took? Yes. Personally, I somewhat expected that people would have a better memory for the space given its relatively small size, which would allow for better navigation overall. While just about everyone got to the majority of goals, there was a wide range of efficiency across those routes not just taking the shortcut or learned route,” said Boone.

He stressed the importance of understanding that everyone has different ideas and approaches for navigating.

“I think that’s interesting because it may mean that some folks think more specifically about where they need to go while some others take a more generalized approach,” he said. “Consider going somewhere, you could think ‘I need to take this exact path’ or you could think ‘well, I just need to go in that general direction and eventually I’ll get there.’ ”

Boone pointed out though that, just because men tended to navigate more efficiently, it does not necessarily mean they are “better” at getting around.

“Both males and females almost hit ceiling performance in terms of success, so males are not necessarily better navigators than women,” he said. “I think people tend to think shortcut taking is better but if everyone makes it to the goal, is one route really better if the overall task is just to get to that location?”