Posted on 08/07/2002 8:06:38 PM PDT by Rodney King
Women on road to nowhere, study finds
Map reading is probably the main source of conflict between couples while driving. But the assertion that women are incapable of reading a map correctly has, unfortunately for the female sex, been backed up by several studies on spatial ability.
Men have used this convenient theory of the female lack of spatial judgment to criticize anything from a woman's ability to reverse into a parking space, to berating her when she fails to differentiate north from south while reading a map.
But now, it seems, the idea that women are wandering around in a kind of spatial vacuum -- where successful navigation is more down to luck than planning -- is only half the story.
While it is true that men find the instructions on a map easier to follow, women do far better when following a verbal set of directions, using landmarks to help them.
Psychologist Deborah Saucier, of the University of Saskatchewan, decided to re-examine the assumption that men are superior to women in their ability to navigate.
"Research into the field of spatial ability time and again concludes that men are superior," she says. "You get the impression that, for most of the time, women are wandering around lost, which is clearly not the case."
Saucier set up a simple experiment using male and female students, assigning them two different ways of getting from one point to another. One set of directions followed the classic Euclidian method employed by map designers, based on compass directions and distances, such as "walk north for 400 metres, then turn east."
The second set used landmarks, such as "carry on until you get to the large oak tree, then turn left and walk until you get to a house with a yellow door."
Having assigned men and women to both sets of instructions, she set the timer and waited at the destination. Her results will vindicate women who say that while they may not be able to read maps as well as men, they can find their way using landmarks.
I'll bet you can. In '97 I did a road trip in Britain with my wife and 22 yr old daughter. I gave her a huge map book of the UK. By day 2, we were buzzing along just fine. My daughter could even call out the exits at the "roundabouts" using the aviation "Clock" method. "OK Pop's, exit at 2:OO O'clock, next rounder". I am really proud of her.
Understandable. But the pilot has opened the map of your flight hours before on the ground as he planned the flight. BTW, it is against FAA regulations to pilot an aircraft over an area that you do not have a CURRENT aviation map four. Believe me, there IS a paper chart (map) in the cockpit of any airliner you fly.
Well there you go Bucko! You can read a map, but you can't count and spell at the same time. Moron.
?????
Uhh, OK, then... let me guess, going higher in an elevator is NORTH and lower is SOUTH? :-)
I have my suspicions that this convention is useful even between women. I suspect women don't often have to give directions because most of the time they are riding in the passenger seat (if they aren't in the back). Since as the non-driver, they don't take the blame when things go wrong, there is that much less incentive to give accurate or even meaningful directions...
Yes, that could be an acceptable description for a statistical "trend." It's a bell curve thing. People who use these methods and terms understand that there's a 10 to 20 percent population on either side of the norm who buck the "trend."
And this explains Lewis and Clark, and Sacajewea.
I'd say this is not a male-female distinction as so much as a rural-urban. My pal's idiot husband from New York could get lost six feet from the front door. His own.
Did you get this from the Koran? I understand all of this sex war stuff and it's pretty hunorous, but women "ain't" people? Interesting opinion you have there.
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