Influencia del sexo en la interferencia y renovación contextual del aprendizaje espacial en humanos

Sex differences in the performance of a second spatial learning (i.e. interference) and in the context renewal of a previous one was researched. Two groups of men and women had to find a hidden key ring in a virtual shelf. Training included two phases, in the second phase the context could be the same or different from the first phase and in each one of them the goal location was different. Testing was conducted in the same context of the first phase of training with the difference that goal was omitted. Results showed that men had lower latencies to find the goal during the first phase and during the initial trial of the second phase; which also showed sex differences in the distribution of search responses. In the testing phase an interference effect or context renewal of spatial learning was observed respectively if the context was always the same or if it changes through training, without sex differences. These results demonstrate the presence of sex differences in a second spatial learning and in their search strategies, but not in the contextual renewal of a previous one.