If a man has lost his keys the first place he should look is for help from a woman, as a new study has found they are better at finding lost items, particularly under pressure.
It has long been believed that the fairer sex is better multitasking, but little scientific research has gone into the theory.
Now a team of psychologists believe they have proven it, finding that women are particularly at juggling tasks if it involves searching for lost items.
This means that when they are trying to get the children ready for school during the early morning rush they are likely to be better at uncovering the keys as well.
The study by researchers from the Universities of Glasgow, Hertfordshire and Leeds, published in the journal BMC Psychology, pitted the sexes against one another in experiments designed to mimic real life situations.
In the first, they played a computer game that required rapid changes of attention and when forced to multi task the women slowed down less than the men did during the task.
In the second, the volunteers were given eight minutes to sketch out how they would attempt a search for a set of lost keys in a field, locate restaurants on a map, and solve simple sums.
Whilst they were trying to complete the task a phone rang, and if they picked up they had to answer a set of general knowledge questions such as what is the capital of France.
They did similarly on all tasks apart from the key hunt, at which the women were judged to have performed better.
Both sexes are equally good at strategic planning, the researchers concluded, but men’s ability breaks down when they are asked to multi task.
Keith Laws, Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychology at the University of Hertfordshire and one of the authors of the paper, said: “This one significant advantage for women on the key search task suggests that they may be superior at tasks requiring high-level cognitive control, particularly planning, monitoring and inhibition.”
It has been suggested that women's apparent superiority at juggling tasks has its roots in evolution.
Lead researcher, Gijsbert Stoet, of Glasgow University, told the Daily Mail that is likely to trace back to the Stone Age, when men went out hunting and women stayed at the base looking after the children, the home, and gathering food.
“Men probably have somewhat more of a one-track mind,” he said.
The researchers recognise that wider studies need to be carried out.