Sex differences in the effect of articulatory or spatial dual-task interference during navigation

Women are more likely to employ landmark-based strategies when navigating, and they are superior at employing this type of strategy. The cause of this sexually dimorphic behaviour is unknown. Seventy-nine undergraduates performed a matrix navigation task wherein the symbols within the matrix were highly nameable. Participants were either given landmark-based or Euclidean-based instructions for navigation within the matrix. During navigation, participants were subjected to either articulatory or spatial interference. The articulatory interference selectively impaired women’s ability to navigate correctly, regardless of the type of instruction. The performance of the men was not affected differentially by the two types of interference. When given a test of symbol recognition following the navigation task, women recognized more of the symbols employed in the task. Collectively, this result suggests that women rely on linguistic information more than men do when navigating, regardless of the type of instruction.