When moving in a sphere, gender gaps may disappear

Sex differences in spatial cognition often show males outperforming females, especially in familiar, landmark-rich environments. This study examined whether such differences persist when subjects encounter a novel spatial paradigm. We designed a sparse, spherical virtual reality space lacking traditional landmarks and orientation cues. In such a non-Euclidean and unusual space, recall performance shows a surprising bimodal distribution, and males and females exhibit similar performance with no clear preference for a particular strategy. Moving to more familiar environments, we observed a shift from bimodal to trimodal to roughly normal distributions, which may reflect the increased spatial plausibility of the environment making available a multiplicity of cues. Still, this does not translate into an overall improvement in performance. Differences in familiarity were also associated with sex differences. Already in the spherical environment, but rich in traditional landmarks, males exhibit a significant strategy preference, while in a flat (Euclidean) setting, they outperform females in sequential recall. These results indicate that when males and females experience an equally novel spatial paradigm, sex differences tend to vanish, suggesting that the male advantage in spatial cognition may require environmental familiarity and the activation of culturally honed schemata.