I believe I'm good at orienting myself… But is that true?

Cultural determinants of the gap between self-estimated navigation ability and wayfinding performance: evidence from 46 countries

Cognitive abilities can vary widely. Some people excel in certain skills, others struggle. However, not all those who describe themselves as gifted are. One possible influence on self-estimates is the surrounding culture. Some cultures may amplify self-assurance and others cultivate humility. Past research has shown that people in different countries can be grouped into a set of consistent cultural clusters with similar values and tendencies, such as attitudes to masculinity or individualism. Here we explored whether such cultural dimensions might relate to the extent to which populations in 46 countries overestimate or underestimate their cognitive abilities in the domain of spatial navigation. Using the Sea Hero Quest navigation test and a large sample (N = 383,187) we found cultural clusters of countries tend to be similar in how they self-rate ability relative to their actual performance. Across the world population sampled, higher self-ratings were associated with better performance. However, at the national level, higher self-ratings as a nation were not associated with better performance as a nation. Germanic and Near East countries were found to be most overconfident in their abilities and Nordic countries to be most under-confident in their abilities. Gender stereotypes may play a role in mediating this pattern, with larger national positive attitudes to male stereotyped roles (Hofstede's masculinity dimension) associated with a greater overconfidence in performance at the national level. We also replicate, with higher precision than prior studies, evidence that older men tend to overestimate their navigation skill more than other groups. These findings give insight into how culture and demographics may impact self-estimates of our abilities.

Men's and women's egocentric and allocentric knowledge: The involvement of mental rotation ability and spatial beliefs

Individual factors can play a relevant role in explaining gender differences in environmental learning in terms of visuospatial abilities and beliefs about spatial abilities, such as stereotypes and growth mindset about navigation ability. In this study, we aim to investigate how mental rotation ability and spatial beliefs interact in the acquisition of egocentric and allocentric spatial knowledge. A sample of 244 participants (140 women) completed individual difference measures, including a mental rotation test (MRT) and questionnaires on gender stereotypes and growth mindsets about navigation ability. Participants then learned a specific route in a virtual environment and performed an egocentric pointing task and an allocentric pointing task. Men performed better in mental rotation and egocentric pointing tasks. Moreover, mental rotation ability predicted both egocentric and allocentric pointing performance; growth mindset predicted allocentric pointing. In general, these results suggest that, despite gender differences in some spatial measures, cognitive abilities and beliefs contribute to supporting environmental knowledge in both men and women.

“Where am I?” A snapshot of the developmental topographical disorientation among young Italian adults

In the last decade, several cases affected by Developmental Topographical Disorientation (DTD) have been described. DTD consists of a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting the ability to orient in the environment despite well-preserved cognitive functions, and in the absence of a brain lesion or other neurological or psychiatric conditions. Described cases showed different impairments in navigational skills ranging from topographic memory deficits to landmark agnosia. All cases lacked a mental representation of the environment that would allow them to use high-order spatial orientation strategies. In addition to the single case studies, a group study performed in Canada showed that the disorder is more widespread than imagined. The present work intends to investigate the occurrence of the disorder in 1,698 young Italian participants. The sample is deliberately composed of individuals aged between 18 and 35 years to exclude people who could manifest the loss of the ability to navigate as a result of an onset of cognitive decline. The sample was collected between 2016 and 2019 using the Qualtrics platform, by which the Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style Scale and anamnestic interview were administered. The data showed that the disorder is present in 3% of the sample and that the sense of direction is closely related to town knowledge, navigational strategies adopted, and gender. In general, males use more complex navigational strategies than females, although DTD is more prevalent in males than in females, in line with the already described cases. Finally, the paper discusses which protective factors can reduce DTD onset and which intervention measures should be implemented to prevent the spread of navigational disorders, which severely impact individuals’ autonomy and social relationships.

GPS Digital Nudge to Limit Road Crashes in Non-Expert Drivers

Many automotive industries are developing technologies to assist human drivers in suggesting wiser choices to improve drivers’ behaviour. The technology that makes use of this modality is defined as a “digital nudge”. An example of a digital nudge is the GPS that is installed on smartphones. Some studies have demonstrated that the use of GPS negatively affects environmental learning because of the transformation of some spatial skills. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the use of the GPS nudge and its relationship with spatial ability, together with its function in supporting the driving behaviour of non-expert drivers, in order to reduce the number of road crashes. A total of 88 non-expert drivers (M age = 21 years) filled in questionnaires and carried out tasks to measure spatial abilities, sense of direction, driver behaviour, and six different real-life driving scenarios. The results reveal that the higher the spatial skills are, the greater the GPS use is, and that drivers who use GPS improve their sense of direction. Moreover, people with high visuospatial abilities use GPS more extensively. Finally, young drivers do not consider the GPS aid to be useful when they have no time pressure. The results are discussed by taking into account the familiarity-and-spatial-ability model.

Do Advanced Spatial Strategies Depend on the Number of Flight Hours? The Case of Military Pilots

BACKGROUND

Military pilots show advanced visuospatial skills. Previous studies demonstrate that they are better at mentally rotating a target, taking different perspectives, estimating distances and planning travel and have a topographic memory. Here, we compared navigational cognitive styles between military pilots and people without flight experience. Pilots were expected to be more survey-style users than nonpilots, showing more advanced navigational strategies.

METHOD

A total of 106 military jet pilots from the Italian Air Force and 92 nonpilots from the general population matched for education with the pilots were enrolled to investigate group differences in navigational styles. The participants were asked to perform a reduced version of the Spatial Cognitive Style Test (SCST), consisting of six tasks that allow us to distinguish individuals in terms of landmark (people orient themselves by using a figurative memory for environmental objects), route (people use an egocentric representation of the space) and survey (people have a map-like representation of the space) user styles.

RESULTS

In line with our hypothesis, military pilots mainly adopt the survey style, whereas nonpilots mainly adopt the route style. In addition, pilots outperformed nonpilots in both the 3D Rotation Task and Map Description Task.

CONCLUSIONS

Military flight expertise influences some aspects of spatial ability, leading to enhanced human navigation. However, it must be considered that they are a population whose navigational skills were already high at the time of selection at the academy before formal training began.

The Role of Gender and Familiarity in a Modified Version of the Almeria Boxes Room Spatial Task

Individual factors like gender and familiarity can affect the kind of environmental representation that a person acquires during spatial navigation. Men seem to prefer relying on map-like survey representations, while women prefer using sequential route representations. Moreover, a good familiarity with the environment allows more complete environmental representations. This study was aimed at investigating gender differences in two different object-position learning tasks (i.e., Almeria Boxes Tasks) assuming a route or a survey perspective also considering the role of environmental familiarity. Two groups of participants had to learn the position of boxes placed in a virtual room. Participants had several trials, so that familiarity with the environment could increase. In both tasks, the effects of gender and familiarity were found, and only in the route perspective did an interaction effect emerge. This suggests that gender differences can be found regardless of the perspective taken, with men outperforming women in navigational tasks. However, in the route task, gender differences appeared only at the initial phase of learning, when the environment was unexplored, and disappeared when familiarity with the environment increased. This is consistent with studies showing that familiarity can mitigate gender differences in spatial tasks, especially in more complex ones.

Normative data and validation of the Italian translation of the Working Memory Questionnaire (WMQ)

Reliable and valid measures are necessary to assess subjective working memory complaints that can be distinct from objective memory performance. The Working Memory Questionnaire (WMQ) is a self-administered scale proposed by Vallat-Azouvi. It assesses the three different working memory domains (memory storage, attention, and executive functions) in accordance with Baddeley's working memory model. Our aim was to propose an Italian translation of the WMQ and provide normative data. We collected normative data from 697 healthy Italian participants aged between 18 and 88 years. Percentiles and cutoff scores, taking into consideration age, gender, and education, were provided for the WMQ total scores and the three separate domains. The performance on the WMQ was influenced by age and education. In particular, age and education affected self-perceived working memory efficacy. Our data demonstrate a significant correlation between the WMQ and paper-and-pencil tests assessing working memory, attention, and executive functions. This study provides normative data that have been adjusted for relevant demographics and percentile grids in an Italian population. The results are in line with a previous French study that also supported the use of the WMQ as a valid prescreening instrument for working memory deficits in clinical practice.

Wayfinding Strategy and Gender - Testing the Mediating Effects of Wayfinding Experience, Personality and Emotions

Background

Individual differences have been seen to play a key role in spatial orientation. Gender implications have been previously described but little is known about how other variables, such as wayfinding anxiety, emotional difficulties and wayfinding experience can mediate this relationship.

Methods

A group of 269 participants were involved in this study and completed questionnaires on their self-reported allocentric orientation strategy, wayfinding experience and satisfaction with the ability for wayfinding. Emotional outcomes were also investigated: spatial and trait anxiety, neuroticism, difficulties in emotion regulation, and personal safety. First, a principal component analysis was conducted and the studied variables were grouped into four components: outdoor wayfinding experience, wayfinding-related fear, emotional difficulties, and effective wayfinding skill. Afterwards, structural equation modelling was performed, using the MPLUS statistical program.

Results

The results showed that gender constitutes a predictor for using an effective wayfinding skill and for feeling wayfinding-related fear. However, outdoor wayfinding experience, wayfinding-related fear and emotional difficulties did not mediate the relationship between effective wayfinding skill and gender.

Conclusion

These results highlight the differential contribution of gender in the emotions that are experienced during spatial orientation and emotions that are related to other types of situations. The limitations, strengths and theoretical implications of the proposed model are discussed. Further investigation is needed in order to understand the role of emotions in spatial orientation.

Spatial skills

Spatial skills represent an important part of our cognitive processes and have been widely studied in the last decades. The term "spatial skills" includes several abilities, some of them clearly sexually dimorphic. Thus men usually perform better than women in mental rotation and spatial orientation tasks, whereas women outperform men in object location memory tests. Skills like visualization and perception could account for these differences, but they could also be modulated by the cognitive style. Obviously, disease can interfere in certain brain structures underlying learning and memory, thus altering spatial abilities in both genders. In this chapter, spatial skills and sexual dimorphism are briefly reviewed, focusing on processes underlying performance as well as models used to explain how we perceive information from the environment. The chapter also includes references to the brain, providing some cues regarding the anatomic regions underlying some of these behaviors.

Memory for Object Location in Augmented Reality: The Role of Gender and the Relationship Among Spatial and Anxiety Outcomes

The potential of augmented reality (AR) technology for the study of spatial memory and orientation is a new research field. AR defines systems that attempt to enhance the user’s experience with the physical world. In our app, we enhance the sense of sight by adding interactive 3D elements to the real environment. Our app can be used in any real environment so that the experimental conditions during the tasks and the way in which an individual navigates are similar to those used in real life. With AR, the experimenter has a high level of control of the task and can store the participant’s responses accurately. The classical factors that influence an individual’s performance on virtual spatial tasks are gender and cognitive factors. The influence of emotional factors on spatial performance has been studied more recently. Since AR tasks for the study of spatial memory and spatial orientation are new developments, little is known about the factors that are related to performance on tasks of this type. In our study, we tested 46 young adults (26 women) in an AR object-location task that was performed in a building. The participants had to memorize the position of eight virtual objects while they were walking through the environment. We also assessed the participants’ performance on an object-recall task, a map-pointing task, and a paper-and-pencil spatial orientation task. The self-reported importance of different spatial strategies for wayfinding and the levels of trait anxiety and wayfinding anxiety were also evaluated. Our findings indicate that men performed better on the spatial paper-and-pencil test and spent more time completing the learning phase of the AR task. The spatial memory for the location of the objects in AR and on the map correlated positively. Anxiety was related to individual differences in the self-reported use of a spatial orientation strategy, but the association among them was weak. Trait anxiety was positively related to the time employed by the participants during the learning phase of the AR task, whereas wayfinding anxiety correlated negatively with the preference for an orientation strategy. Our results highlight the importance of anxiety in spatial orientation.

Differences in Spatial Memory Recognition Due to Cognitive Style

Field independence refers to the ability to perceive details from the surrounding context as a whole and to represent the environment by relying on an internal reference frame. Conversely, field dependence individuals tend to focus their attention on single environmental features analysing them individually. This cognitive style affects several visuo-spatial abilities including spatial memory. This study assesses both the effect of field independence and field dependence on performance displayed on virtual environments of different complexity. Forty young healthy individuals took part in this study. Participants performed the Embedded Figures Test for field independence or dependence assessment and a new spatial memory recognition test. The spatial memory recognition test demanded to memorize a green box location in a virtual room picture. Thereafter, during ten trials participants had to decide if a green box was located in the same position as in the sample picture. Five of the pictures were correct. The information available in the virtual room was manipulated. Hence, two different experimental conditions were tested: a virtual room containing all landmarks and a virtual room with only two cues. Accuracy and reaction time were registered. Analyses demonstrated that higher field independent individuals were related to better spatial memory performance in two landmarks condition and were faster in all landmark condition. In addition, men and women did not differ in their performance. These results suggested that cognitive style affects spatial memory performance and this phenomenon is modulated by environment complexity. This does not affect accuracy but time spent. Moreover, field dependent individuals are unable to organize the navigational field by relying on internal reference frames when few landmarks are available, and this causes them to commit more errors.

Effect of Cognitive Style on Learning and Retrieval of Navigational Environments

Field independence (FI) has been found to correlate with a wide range of cognitive processes requiring cognitive restructuring. Cognitive restructuring, that is going beyond the information given by the setting, is pivotal in creating stable mental representations of the environment, the so-called "cognitive maps," and it affects visuo-spatial abilities underpinning environmental navigation. Here we evaluated whether FI, by fostering cognitive restructuring of environmental cues on the basis of an internal frame of reference, affects the learning and retrieval of a novel environment. Fifty-four participants were submitted to the Embedded Figure Test (EFT) for assessing their Cognitive Style (CS) and to the Perspective Taking/Spatial Orientation Test (PTSOT) and the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction Scale (SBSOD) for assessing their spatial perspective taking and orientation skills. They were also required to learn a path in a novel, real environment (route learning, RL), to recognize landmarks of this path among distracters (landmark recognition, LR), to order them (landmark ordering, LO) and to draw the learned path on a map (map drawing, MD). Retrieval tasks were performed both immediately after learning (immediate-retrieval) and the day after (24 h-retrieval). Performances on EFT significantly correlated with the time needed to learn the path, with MD (both in the immediate- and in the 24 h- retrievals), results on LR (in 24-retrieval) and performances on PTSOT. Interestingly, we found that gender interacted with CS on RL (time of learning) and MD. Females performed significantly worse than males only if they were classified as FD, but did not differ from males if they were classified as FI. These results suggest that CS affects learning and retrieval of navigational environment, especially when a map-like representation is required. We propose that CS may be pivotal in forming the cognitive map of the environment, likely due to the higher ability of FI individuals in restructuring environmental cues in a global and flexible long-term representation of the environment.

Navigational Style Influences Eye Movement Pattern during Exploration and Learning of an Environmental Map

During navigation people may adopt three different spatial styles (i.e., Landmark, Route, and Survey). Landmark style (LS) people are able to recall familiar landmarks but cannot combine them with directional information; Route style (RS) people connect landmarks to each other using egocentric information about direction; Survey style (SS) people use a map-like representation of the environment. SS individuals generally navigate better than LS and RS people. Fifty-one college students (20 LS; 17 RS, and 14 SS) took part in the experiment. The spatial cognitive style (SCS) was assessed by means of the SCS test; participants then had to learn a schematic map of a city, and after 5 min had to recall the path depicted on it. During the learning and delayed recall phases, eye-movements were recorded. Our intent was to investigate whether there is a peculiar way to explore an environmental map related to the individual’s spatial style. Results support the presence of differences in the strategy used by the three spatial styles for learning the path and its delayed recall. Specifically, LS individuals produced a greater number of fixations of short duration, while the opposite eye movement pattern characterized SS individuals. Moreover, SS individuals showed a more spread and comprehensive explorative pattern of the map, while LS individuals focused their exploration on the path and related targets. RS individuals showed a pattern of exploration at a level of proficiency between LS and SS individuals. We discuss the clinical and anatomical implications of our data.

Sex differences in visuospatial and navigational working memory: the role of mood induced by background music

Sex differences in visuospatial abilities are long debated. Men generally outperform women, especially in wayfinding or learning a route or a sequence of places. These differences might depend on women's disadvantage in underlying spatial competences, such as mental rotation, and on the strategies used, as well as on emotions and on self-belief about navigational skills, not related to actual skill-levels. In the present study, sex differences in visuospatial and navigational working memory in emotional contexts were investigated. Participants' mood was manipulated by background music (positive, negative or neutral) while performing on the Corsi Block-tapping Task (CBT) and Walking Corsi (WalCT) test. In order to assess the effectiveness of mood manipulation, participants filled in the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule before and after carrying out the visuospatial tasks. Firstly, results showed that after mood induction, only the positive affect changed, whereas the negative affect remained unconfounded by mood and by sex. This finding is in line with the main effect of 'group' on all tests used: the positive music group scored significantly higher than other groups. Secondly, although men outperformed women in the CBT forward condition and in the WalCT forward and backward conditions, they scored higher than women only in the WalCT with the negative background music. This means that mood cannot fully explain sex differences in visuospatial and navigational working memory. Our results suggest that sex differences in the CBT and WalCT can be better explained by differences in spatial competences rather than by emotional contexts.