What the hell?

[A Purchase I Regret]
While perusing the shelves at the Rand McNally store, I picked up a very heavy Thomas Guide for Riverside and San Diego counties. This will let me drive around without getting ridiculously lost. Happy as a clam with my street guide. What I am not happy with is the $12 I wasted on something called "I'll Never Get Lost Again".

Go ahead and laugh. It sounded kind of funny. The book cover promised to deliver a perfect traveling companion, as well as a complete guide to improving my sense of direction. That's verbatim. If you know me, you know I'm always lost. It's not from lack of paying attention. Once I wander outside of the manhattan grid formation, I'm truly puzzled to find east or west. The author (I almost hesitate to give her that title), Linda Grekin, starts off with some funny examples of the directionally challenged. Then she provides more examples of people stating that they have no sense of direction. She suggests carrying a notebook, writing directions for the inbound and outbound trips, and allowing extra time. Big deal. Whoopee. People like me "are different".

NO!

The only interesting information she provides is someone else's research. Two scientists in the 80's poked around and measured the length of time it took people to decide whether a picture of a 3D object represented the same object as a second picture (where the object (or another) appeared with a different spatial orientation). (Ok, long sentence.) It's hard to explain, but if you want to look at the original experiment, go here. (scroll down a bit to see the 3D objects they use to test.)

With my interest piqued, I went online.

Now listen to this: Further research has shown that men perform the tests quicker than women. One scientist (a woman) explains "the magnitude of sex differences in mental rotation as large as the IQ scores between Ph.D.'s and typical college freshmen or as large as the difference in height between 13- and 18-year-old-girls."

Uh. Ok.

The "superiority" (yes, that's the word used) is attributable to a thicker right cortex in males than in females. The right brain hemisphere is in most people responsible for certain spatial and perceptual tasks like mental rotation.

Fine. So their heads are bigger. We already knew that.

Well, hang onto your panties. Their brains are bigger because:

"For the thousands of years during which our brain characteristics evolved, humans lived in relatively small groups of hunter-gatherers. The division of labor between the sexes in such a society probably was quite marked, as it is in existing hunter-gatherer societies. Men were responsible for hunting large game, which often required long-distance travel. They were also responsible for defending the group against predators and enemies and for shaping and use of weapons. Women most probably gathered food near the camp, tended the home, prepared food and clothing and cared for children...",

"Men would require long-distance route-finding ability so they could recognize a geographic array from varying orientations. They would also need targeting skills. Women would require short-range navigation, fine motor capabilities,...".

Hmph.
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But remember, it's not my fault I get lost all the time. It's in my genetic make up.

Er...

posted by irene @ 9/27/2002 02:28:00 AM