From the title, I was expecting this to be about navigation and map-reading, more than these classic spatial rotation problems. I'm not sure what it is, but I've certainly noticed that my mother, my sister, my aunts, all of my girlfriends, virtually everyone I've ever taken a roadtrip with with double X chromosomes, have struggled mightily with what I'll call "locational awareness" - tracking where they are vs where they have been vs where they are trying to go. Some of these have been brilliant people, but their brains just don't seem to work that way.
I don't know if the ubiquity of GPS is helping or hurting this phenomenon.
I don't know if the ubiquity of GPS is helping or hurting this phenomenon.