Spatial cognition
Do sex and menstrual cycle phase change how people navigate and find words?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Men navigated faster and women produced more words, but the menstrual cycle only shifted which navigation strategy women did best with, not their overall performance.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Men and naturally cycling women were each tested twice (women in early follicular and mid-luteal phases, order counterbalanced) on a 2-D map navigation task and written verbal fluency tasks whose strategy instructions were manipulated; sex and cycle phase were not manipulated, and salivary hormones were measured.
- N
- N=93 · Students were recruited and tested; after excluding five women whose hormones did not match their reported cycle phase and two men with unstable testosterone, analyses used 49 men and 44 women, each tested in two sessions.
- Population
- Right-handed German-speaking university students at the University of Salzburg aged 18 to 36; women had regular cycles and used no hormonal contraception
- Outcome
- Navigation reaction time and accuracy under allocentric/egocentric and Euclidian/landmark instructions; number of words, cluster size and switches in phonemic and semantic fluency; salivary testosterone, estradiol and progesterone
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Key findings
Men were faster on the navigation task but no more accurate, and women produced more words in both letter and category fluency and switched between subcategories more often. Contrary to the hypotheses, men and women did not differ in which navigation perspective or strategy suited them best. Within women, the luteal phase raised accuracy with landmark instructions and lowered it with distance instructions, and higher progesterone went with better egocentric and worse allocentric accuracy. Cycle phase and hormones had no effect on verbal fluency, and testosterone predicted nothing.
Methodology
University students did a computer task in which they followed written route descriptions across a grid of landmark symbols, with instructions that used either compass directions or left/right turns, and either distances or landmarks. They also wrote as many words as possible from a letter or category under neutral, 'cluster similar words' or 'switch between subcategories' instructions. Each person was tested twice, with women tested once in the low-hormone early follicular phase and once in the high-hormone mid-luteal phase, confirmed by ovulation tests and saliva hormone levels.
Limitations
Sex differences are observational, so they cannot be attributed to hormones rather than experience or socialisation. The authors note that egocentric instructions on a fixed on-screen grid also required mental rotation, and that route descriptions had to be remembered, so perspective effects may partly reflect rotation or memory ability rather than strategy preference. Only early follicular and mid-luteal phases were compared, so effects of the late-follicular estradiol peak were not tested, and general intelligence was not measured. All participants were highly educated young students, limiting generalisation.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Not yet placed on a claim. This paper has study layers, but no concept page yet cites it as support, challenge, or qualifier.
Related papers in this topic
Same topic cluster — not a recommendation engine.
- Do fearful faces make it harder to find your way?
- Do people stick to one way of giving directions across tasks?
- Do compasses or distant mountains help people learn a new place?
- Do children remember a route better if they plan it themselves?
- Does exercise help explain why men score higher on spatial tests?