Biology Department & Neuroscience Program, Stonehill College, Easton, MA 02357, USA.
Physiol Behav. 2012 Feb 28;105(4):1045-51. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.11.018. Epub 2011 Nov 26.
It has been well-established that men outperform women on some spatial tasks. The tools commonly used to demonstrate this difference (e.g. The Mental Rotations Task) typically involve problems and solutions that are presented in a context devoid of referents. The study presented here assessed whether the addition of referents (or "landmarks") would attenuate the well-established sex difference on the judgment of line orientation task (JLOT). Three versions of the JLOT were presented in a within design. The first iteration contained the original JLOT (JLOT 1). JLOT 2 contained three "landmarks" or referents and JLOT 3 contained only one landmark. The sex difference on JLOT 1 was completely negated by the addition of three landmarks on JLOT 2 or the addition of one landmark on JLOT3. In addition, salivary testosterone was measured. In men, gains in performance on the JLOT due to the addition of landmarks were positively correlated with testosterone levels. This suggests that men with the highest testosterone levels benefited the most from the addition of landmarks. These data help to highlight different strategies used by men and women to solve spatial tasks.
已有充分证据表明，在某些空间任务上男性比女性表现更优。通常用于证明这种差异的工具（例如心理旋转任务）涉及到的问题和解决方案都是在没有参照点的背景下呈现的。本研究评估了参照点（或“地标”）的添加是否会削弱判断线方向任务（JLOT）中已确立的性别差异。在一个内设计中呈现了三种版本的 JLOT。第一个迭代包含原始的 JLOT（JLOT1）。JLOT2 包含三个“地标”或参照点，而 JLOT3 仅包含一个地标。在 JLOT1 上的性别差异完全被 JLOT2 上的三个地标或 JLOT3 上的一个地标所消除。此外，还测量了唾液中的睾酮。在男性中，由于地标添加而导致的 JLOT 表现的提高与睾酮水平呈正相关。这表明，睾酮水平最高的男性从地标添加中获益最大。这些数据有助于突出男性和女性解决空间任务时使用的不同策略。
