Gay men share women's talents for map reading

[davidinalameda]

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/25/nmap25.xml

so only gay men and straight women will stop and ask for directions?

:shrug:

Homosexual men share the same relatively poor map reading skills as heterosexual women, according to a study.

Earlier research found men better than women at finding their way around a "virtual reality" maze, relying on geometric cues while women rely more on landmarks.

Yesterday Dr Qazi Rahman and colleagues from the University of East London reported in Behavioural Neuroscience that homosexual men used more landmarks during map reading than did heterosexual men, adopting a blend of male and female navigational strategies.

[Placebo]

1. I can't read a map for SHIT...

so maybe this is accurate. :)

[skypilot]

2. Headline should have read:

"Gay Men Share Women's LACK of Talent for Map Reading"

When I saw the headline I thought "Well, I must not be gay then." I'm terrible at reading maps. On top of that, I have a terrible sense of direction in general. I've lived in this city for almost thirty years and if it wasn't for "landmarks" I'd have no idea where the hell I was--especially when I come off of a small, tucked away street.

[nickinSTL]

3. Yeah, the headline is a bit misleading

I was thinking...boy, are we off...

But, I guess we fit the stereotype.

I read maps really well, my fiancee once tried to navigate from Springfield, Illinois towards Ohio...and ended up in Peoria, Illinois. :shrug:

[Placebo]

4. Me too!

If it wasn't for specific "landmarks" and buildings or objects I remember, I'd have no clue of where I am in this city half the time. And I'm horrible at navigating "the streets".

[Meldread]

10. I'm the same way.

I'm a landmark kinda guy. If I don't have landmarks I'm likely to get lost.

[DBoon]

5. next: "Lesbians share men's talents for (not) asking directions when lost"

breaking news

[arwalden]

6. I'm Great With Maps... Lousy Without Them.

I will ask for directions, but only after thoroughly exploring the area to make certain there's no other way. Am I a lesbian?

[iverglas]

7. ditto

I can get anywhere with a map, and hardly anywhere without one.

All asking for directions generally does it get me somebody else's clueless notion of how to do something I was already clueless about. ;)

Of course, I (straight woman) also do far better than most men I know in every other area of life involving spacial perception, too.

Oh dear, it seems that I must. We do know why women have such (allegedly) poor spacial perception, right? Because all our lives we've been told that this (hold thumb and forefinger apart the distance of your choice) is 10 inches. Could this be my gay male colleagues' problem too??

I remember one time a "landmark" did stand me in good stead. I had to get from Nashville to London, about 100 miles on this side of the border, in a day, basically because I'd run out of money and would be starving in the cold and dark if I didn't make it. I'd got as far as someplace in Michigan, Ann Arbor, I think it was, when foreign geography struck me down. This was my first time driving myself in the US, and ring roads were still a bit of a novelty to me; we tend not to have them up here. I carefully examined maps for clues as to where to be sure to get off the damned things and back onto the throughway interstate as I went past a city. So there I was, in the dark on a road with much construction, driving around Ann Arbor, and ... you guessed it ... around and around Ann Arbor. Just the once, really, but had it not been for the full moon and the fact that I actually noticed it had switched sides on me, I might still be there ...

[Misunderestimator]

18. YES!! You sound just like me! I knew it!

:D

[Sentath]

8. Uhmm, if they say so.

I'll be the first to tell you that I have _No_ sense of direction and a really good sense of relative position with or without a map.

As for VR I couldn't really say. I always get seasick by the time I get far enough to be potentially lost.

[Solar]

9. thats dead wrong for me

I am a spot on navigator. I love maps and love exploring. Of course this study is a generality, but its dead wrong for me.

[mitchtv]

11. wrong for me too

I am good with maps, and love them. I also do not hesitate to ask directions. But I never got the whole gay package, I can't decorate worth a shit

[Behind the Aegis]

12. Sounds like me

Except, I am really bad about NOT stopping for directions! That is the 'maleness' kicking up in me! I got the decorating 'gene,' but never got the 'shopping' gene and clothes bore me to death. I love things like this study...it always brings up interesting things..usually dumb things, but interesting nonetheless.

[Uncle Roy]

14. Same here. Does this mean I'm actually a lesbian?

Plus, I drive a Subaru station wagon. Very suspicious!

No Golden Labs though, and I hate softball, and I cry at the opera. It's all so confusing...

[khashka]

13. Interesting but not surprising

A number of studies like this show that gay men's brains are organized somewhere between the way straight men's and straight women's are. We tend to share characteristics with both (on a statistical level, individual mileage may vary).

Studies like this are building up a wealth of evidence that we are biologically different from straight men - which goes a long way toward dismissing those bullshit theories that our mommies were too controlling, or we never bonded right with our dads, or we just perversely chose to be second class citizens.

Interestingly, to me at least, the longitudinal "sissy boy" studies indicate, obviously, that adult homosexuality can be predicted in early childhood, but more intriguingly that there may be different types of homosexuality.

I'd like to see the intersection between these two very different types of research.....

Khash.

[Ellen Forradalom]

15. Oh fer God's sake

I can read a map just fine, thank you.

[liontamer]

16. So my sexuality is linked to the fact that I'm good at reading maps?

So when we teach our little girls to read maps in school we're making them gay?
:shrug:

[Misunderestimator]

17. Gosh... I guess that lesbians aren't even worth studying...

maybe they just assume that we would be like straight women?
Personally, I am great at reading maps, but if I don't have one... I
don't hesitate to stop for directions. And I'm oblivious to landmarks
for the most part, unless it's the Empire State Building or something.

This "research" is insulting to gay men and to women... implying that
the way men navigate is better than the way women do because they can
find their way through a maze without landmarks. Then also implying
that they had better minds for geometry. Ugh.

[noamnety]

19. This is funny for me

Me, (straight woman), I'm always getting lost. But I frequently drive around with a friend who is gay, and she's always the direction person; it's been a running joke with us.