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Women need widescreen and higher framerates! (1 Viewer)

Max Leung

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Women need widescreen for virtual navigation.

The article lists extremely good reasons why wives should allow men to buy HDTV-capable front projectors. :)

Microsoft has found that women tend to be about 20 per cent slower than men when working out where they are in a computer-generated world.
This has been indirectly confirmed by tests made a decade (or decades) earlier by independent scientists. Spatial abilities do differ between men and women in general, with men having the edge (although women have the edge in asking for directions sooner).

Those crazy scientists...setting out to prove things that everybody knows already. :D
 

Eric_L

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Actually, as I recall, it is women who lead men in spatial positioning. I recall an experement where a chair was suspended off center in a darkened room before a screen where a cross-hair was displayed. The subject would adjust controls that move the chair and attempt to level off the chair. Their only visual point of reference was the crosshairs in a pitch-black room.

Just to make it tricky, the testers would display the crosshairs off center as well.

The women subects were far more successful at reaching a level plane than the men. The men most often mirrored the crosshairs mistakenly thinking them to be level. Even when they knew otherwise.

It may be that men were more able to 'immerse' them selves into the virtual definition of level, or that they are more dependant on visual input than women.

I think it just means that men suck at relating visual input to their suroundings.
 

Max Leung

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All of the studies I've seen stated the exact opposite in terms of spatial coordination. Of course, there are plenty of "abstract" visual cues in those experiments. Also, the experiment you mentioned says almost nothing about visual/spatial ability, as there is no motion. It is static. The most you can conclude is that women are better at interpreting the levelness of a chair and a crosshair in a dark room (that is, how well do static images line up...useful when hanging paintings and displaying art, etc.). It says nothing about how well they read maps, measure distances, or convert from map coordinates to practical directions (map location Q4 becomes turn left on 14th street, go straight for 5 km, and turn right at 7 ave).
 

Don Black

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I don't see what the big deal is. Women are different from men. A shocker, I know.... Women require different cockpits in fighter jets too. We adapt and move on...
 

Max Leung

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Yep. We adapt by buying wider screens and getting faster video gear. :)

Don, what modifications did they need to make to the fighter jet cockpits?
 

Don Black

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Max: I don't remember the specifics of the DoD study but it had to do with placement of the controls, leg room, etc. It's not like they fly different jets. Existing cockpits are just designed for both sexes.
 

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