Men are better at map reading, but women are superior at remembering routes, study finds Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270534/M

By Katherine Faulkner
Last updated at 2:37 AM on 3rd May 2010

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They are often accused of being poor navigators because they can't read maps as well as their male counterparts. But women are actually less likely than men to get lost because they are better at recalling routes, new research has shown.

Although men will be better able to use a map, the fairer sex can often can get to their destination quicker on subsequent journies because they remember landmarks.

The study looked at a group of men and women from a Mexican village who were sent to gather mushrooms fitted with satellite positioning systems and heart rate monitors.
Different talents: Men are better at map reading, but women shine when it comes to remembering routes

Different talents: Men are better at map reading, but women shine when it comes to remembering routes

Although men and women returned with roughly the same amount of mushrooms, the women had expended far less energy because they knew where they were going.

The men had climbed higher, travelled further and used 70 per cent more energy than the women. Meanwhile the women made more stops but seemed to know where to go.

They were more likely to recall their routes by using landmarks and retraced paths to the most productive patches of plants.

Luis Pacheco-Cobos, who led the research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, said: 'These findings show that women perform better and more readily adopt search strategies appropriate to a gathering lifestyle than men.'

And scientists said the results are as true of shopping for vegetables in a supermarket as gathering mushrooms in the wild.

Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at Kent University, said: 'Women develop a certain intuition and make better judgment calls. Men make a big thing about it and turn the most basic tasks into a very big deal. They tend to overcomplicate it.'
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The study confirms the long-held belief that men's and women's skills at route finding developed differently over time because men were the hunters and women the gatherers.

It is believed that the differences emerged during the Pleistocene age— which began more than 2.5million years ago and ended almost 12,000 years ago.

The male approach is the most useful for hunting down prey but the female approach is better for gathering growing food.

Similar research using 140 volunteers at Queen Mary, University of London, showed that while men were better at discovering hidden objects, women were more successful in tests requiring them to remember where objects lay.

Annabelle Bond, the British mountaineer who was the fastest woman to climb the 'seven summits' - the highest mountains on each continent — said the survey reflected her experience of male and female mountaineers.

'If I have been somewhere before, then I can definitely find that place again very quickly,' she told the Sunday Times.

'But I don’t trust my map-reading skills, and on a mountain I would always rely on a man for that. We are programmed to do things in different ways.

'That is why men can get lost in a supermarket and women can speed around it in minutes. Of course, most men have no interest in being there and that is why they get lost in the aisles.'

The results of the study will be published in the scientific journal Evolution and Human Behaviour later this year.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270534/Men-better-map-reading-women-superior-remembering-routes-study-finds.html#ixzz0nIl1DlDG