Sex differences in object location memory: The female advantage of immediate detection of changes

Object location memory has been considered the only spatial ability in which females display an advantage over males. We examined sex differences in long-term object location memory. After participants studied an array of objects, they were asked to recall the locations of these objects three minutes later or one week later. Results showed a female advantage only in the three-minute memory task. Additionally, we analyzed sex differences in the ability to recognize both location-exchanged and location-maintained objects. Females were superior to males at recognizing location-exchanged objects after three minutes, but not after one week. Although the one-week group's memory performance for location-exchanged objects was marginally lower, some members of that group recognized the location-maintained objects at higher levels of performance. Therefore, we concluded that the female advantage in object location memory is limited to immediate detection of changes. The relevant evolutionary theories are discussed.