Dimorphic turning bias in spontaneous rotational movement

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Title
Dimorphic turning bias in spontaneous rotational movement
Journal
SFB/TR Report
Author(s)
Brandner C, Borioli J
Publication state
Published
Issued date
09/2006
Volume
8
Number
011-09
Pages
5-6
Language
english
Notes
Report Series of the Transregional Collaborative Research Center SFB/TR8 Spatial Cognition Universität Brement/Universität Freiburg --- Old month value: september
Abstract
Turning biases have been associated with unbalanced hemispheric dopaminergic activity, and this activity has been correlated with cue-directed behaviors. Moreover, a sexual differentiation in hippocampal dopaminergic receptors following learning has been shown. In humans, pointing responses towards the starting point is commonly used to assess the accuracy of direction estimation after locomotion. Thus, it may be of interest for the field of spatial cognition to explore human sex differences in spontaneous turning bias when a body rotation is required. To this end, male and female blindfolded subjects were guided in a linear displacement and asked to rotate in order to point in the direction of the starting position. The main finding was a massive difference between men and women. 80% of women showed a turning bias to the right when 69% of men showed a bias to the left. Moreover, these preferences were not correlated with handedness. These results suggest basic preferences associated to sex might influence male and female performance in spatial cognition. They also suggest experimental procedures may be biased in favor of male or female strategies. Therefore, such preferences should be considered in order to gain further insight into the development of more balanced procedures.
Keywords
Sex-diffences-body rotation-turning biases
Create date
19/11/2007 10:52
Last modification date
20/08/2019 16:10
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