Besides navigation accuracy: Gender differences in strategy selection and level of spatial confidence

A virtual version of the reorientation task was employed to test new behavioral measures of navigation strategies and spatial confidence within a gender-fair assessment approach. The results demonstrated that, from a behavioral point of view, women had lower level of spatial confidence than men regardless of level of accuracy. Moreover, the way men and women selected spatial strategies depended on the arrangement of spatial cues within the environment. In other terms women relied on landmarks under specific conditions compatible with an adaptive combination/associative model of spatial orientation. Finally, the present study emphasized the importance to assess gender differences taking into account specific affective variables and information selection processing, beyond accuracy.

► Men and women can reach with equal probability the maximum level of proficiency in the reorientation task. Consequently, it is suitable to assess gender differences according to gender fairness criteria. ► Gender differences in reorientation accuracy are slight. ► If geometry is the only available – ambiguous - spatial cue, men are more (behaviorally measured) confident than women, regardless the accuracy. ► Women recur to a (behaviorally measured) landmark-based strategy if the cue is salient/stable, i.e., landmark is far away from the viewer and/or near to the target. ► In navigation and reorientation women showed to be less tolerant to uncertainty about spatial cue and more constrained by the arrangement of the spatial cues than men.