DADvocate

I'm available. As a straight male, I'm highly qualified for map reading according to this study by researchers at the University of Warwick.

Sexual orientation and gender affects navigation skills, with straight men best at map reading and heterosexual women worst, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Warwick considered how we perform mental tasks in light of sexual preferences, with straight men performing better at map reading than gay men who in turn perform better than lesbians, who in turn do better than straight women.

However, you may want to get someone a little younger than I.

"In all the tasks, older people did worse than younger people, whether male or female. In fact, for some of the tasks, people in their 30s were significantly worse than people in their 20s.

"This is one of the first times that age-related decline has been shown in adults under 40," she said.

"Because of the size of the study, we found reliable effects with ageing.

"Men showed a greater decline with age than women did, irrespective of whether a task favoured men or women."

But when it came to mental rotation, average male performance still stayed ahead of women, though the difference closed.

I'm glad someone finally researched this topic because the other day I needed directions and walked into a bar for help. There was an old man, a gay couple, two lesbians, a just married young man and woman, a priest, a rabbi and the Easter Bunny.....

Gawd! I should have followed my father's advice, got my PhD and become a university professor. Then I could make a living researching stupid things rather than serious consumer research.

BTW - This study is partly old news.