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From New Scientist:
More of the article is here:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7069
Gay men employ the same strategies for navigating as women - using landmarks to find their way around - a new study suggests.
But they also use the strategies typically used by straight men, such as using compass directions and distances. In contrast, gay women read maps just like straight women, reveals the study of 80 heterosexual and homosexual men and women.
"Gay men adopt male and female strategies. Therefore their brains are a sexual mosaic," explains Qazi Rahman, a psychobiologist who led the study at the University of East London, UK. "It's not simply that lesbians have men's brains and gay men have women's brains."
The stereotype that women are relatively poor map readers is borne out by a reasonable bulk of scientific literature, notes Rahman. "Men, particularly, excel at spatial navigation."
The new study might help researchers understand how cognitive differences and sexual orientation develop in the womb, he says.
Left at the church
Previous tests challenging men and women to make their way through virtual-reality mazes, or real-life scenarios, have shown that men tend to be speedier and use different strategies to women.
But Rahman points out this does not mean that all women are bad map readers, or that it is the mental strategy employed that makes the difference.
Women tend to navigate using landmarks. For example: "Turn left at the church and carry on past the corner shop." Rahman told New Scientist that "men rely more on the points of the compass; they have a better sense of north, south, east and west". They are also more likely to describe distances.
More of the article is here:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7069