The Influence of Sex and Cognitive Style on Eye Movement Patterns during Map Navigation

We investigated the effects of sex and cognitive style on performance in the map navigation task with various label types (object labels, verbal labels, no labels) in 40 healthy participants (20 men, 20 women, age 24,3±0,8) using eye tracking. The cognitive styles (object, spatial, verbal) were assessed using a questionnaire developed by Blazhenkova and Kozhevnikov [2009]. Only men had a reduced number of fixations during route reproduction compared to route memorization; women had longer saccade durations than men. Participants with spatial cognitive style showed shorter saccade duration compared to object cognitive style. Participants with spatial and verbal cognitive styles had more fixations on maps with verbal labels than on the other maps. Analysis of questionnaire and the number of fixations has demonstrated the link between sex and cognitive style, but the effects of sex and cognitive style are not identical. Sex affects eye movements during the performance of different tasks (map familiarization, route memorization, and route reproduction), while cognitive style determines eye movements during navigation on maps with different types of labels.