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Abstract:
Previous reports suggest differences between males and females when performing spatial perception tasks, where males align a luminous line more accurately with gravity. This may be attributable to males and females weighting visual, gravity, and body orientation cues differently. The subjective visual vertical (SVV) and the perceptual upright (PU) were assessed with different visual and body orientations. SVV was measured by using the luminous line. PU was measured with the orientated-character-recognition task (OCHART). For SVV, when upright, females were significantly more influenced by visual cues and had higher variances than males. When lying sideways males and females were equally influenced by vision and had equal variances. For PU, males and females were equally influenced by visual cues and had equal variances at both body orientations. These differences confirm that PU and SVV are determined by different mechanisms with only the SVV showing gender differences.