Next time you’re walking down the street and have to stop to ask for directions, make sure to stop a man.
A recent study conducted by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s Carl Pintzka suggests that men really do have a better sense of direction than women, due to their increase in testosterone.
So ladies if you’re reading this, don’t take offence, it’s not our fault.
Researchers conducted experiments to learn more about genders and their sense of direction. The researchers administered testosterone to women and tested how they performed while completing different navigational tasks in a virtual environment.
During the experiment, the researchers continuously recorded images of participants’ brains using an MRI scanner to measure brain activity. The results showed that men took several shortcuts and used more cardinal directions (North, East, South, and West) while using a different part of the brain than the women in the study. The Women tended to orient themselves along a specific path (i.e. go towards the gas station, then go left until you reach the park).
Pintzka concluded that, “men’s sense of direction was more effective. They quite simply got to their destination faster.”
The next step of the study had a different group of 42 women, which were split into two even groups. Twenty-one received a drop of testosterone on the tongue before participating in the task, while the other 21 women received a placebo.
After researchers reviewed the results from this round, they found that the women that received the testosterone droplet didn’t necessarily complete more tasks than the opposing group, but they were more effective at using the cardinal directions, like the men in the first study.
Now, where was it we were going with all this…
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