Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Behav Brain Res. 2010 Apr 2;208(2):336-42. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2009.11.039. Epub 2009 Dec 4.
We examined the effects of cue types on human spatial memory in 3D virtual environments adapted from classical animal and human tasks. Two classes of cues of different functions were investigated: those that provide directional information, and those that provide positional information. Adding a directional cue (geographical slant) to the spatial delayed-match-to-sample task improved performance in males but not in females. When the slant directional cue was removed in a hidden-target location task, male performance was impaired but female performance was unaffected. The removal of positional cues, on the other hand, impaired female performance but not male performance. These results are consistent with results from laboratory rodents and thus support the hypothesis that sex differences in spatial memory arise from the dissociation between a preferential reliance on directional cues in males and on positional cues in females.
我们在从经典动物和人类任务改编的 3D 虚拟环境中检查了线索类型对人类空间记忆的影响。研究了两类具有不同功能的线索：提供方向信息的线索和提供位置信息的线索。在空间延迟匹配样本任务中添加方向线索（地理倾斜）可以提高男性的表现，但不能提高女性的表现。当在隐藏目标位置任务中移除倾斜方向线索时，男性的表现受到损害，而女性的表现不受影响。另一方面，移除位置线索会损害女性的表现，但不会损害男性的表现。这些结果与实验室啮齿动物的结果一致，因此支持这样的假设，即空间记忆中的性别差异源于男性对方向线索的优先依赖与女性对位置线索的依赖之间的分离。
