UK:Gay men are as bad as women at navigating, research has shown. Both share the same poor sense of direction and rely on local landmarks to get around, a study suggests. They are also slower to take in spatial information than heterosexual men.
How this relates to parking a car - a task women famously struggle with, according to the stereotype - is open to question.
But researchers say it is likely to make driving in a strange environment more challenging for gay men and women than for straight male motorists.
Psychologists at Queen Mary University in London conducted computer-based tests of spatial learning and memory on 140 volunteers recruited through advertisements in newspapers and magazines. They showed that gay men, straight women and lesbians navigated in much the same way and shared the same weaknesses.
But there were also differences between gay and heterosexual men and straight and lesbian women.
Previous research had already shown that the male stereptype of women being poor navigators has some basis in reality. Men consistently outperform women on tasks requiring navigation and discovering hidden objects.
Women, on the other hand, are more successful in tests requiring them to remember where objects lie.
The Queen Mary team, led by Dr Qazi Rahman, used virtual reality simulations of two common tests of spatial learning and memory developed at Yale University.
The findings were published yesterday in the journal Hippocampus. - ( PA)