The impact of age and familiarity with the environment on categorical and coordinate spatial relation representations

Distortions in Spatial Mental Representation Affect Sketch Maps in Young Adults

Humans tend to misrepresent spatial information which leads to systematic errors due to distorted organizational processes regarding metric and positional judgments. This study is aimed at analyzing metric and positional distortions in cognitive maps by using external representations, namely sketch maps, in two experiments with young participants. In the first experiment, we use the sketching area of Northern Europe. In the second experiment, the University campus area was used. The first aim was to test the hypothesis that the presence of the sea between the triplet of landmarks generates an overestimation of the distances between them in the case of Northern Europe; and to test the hypothesis that the number of turns in a route influences the overestimation of the distance between landmarks in the case of the campus area. The second aim was to investigate alignment and rotation errors using the same maps. Concerning metric errors, the results showed the overestimation of distances with a geographical gap between the cities (the sea in the Northern European Area), and those with more turns between landmarks (the campus area). The results concerning rotations and alignments were in line with the previous research about positional errors. The present study extended findings on distortions in spatial mental representation as emerging from verbal judgments, to sketch maps: direct visuospatial external representations eluding the conversion into verbal coding of spatial information. The presence of distortions in cognitive maps could be considered the consequence of the encoding of spatial information.

“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 Road More Travelled: The Differential Effects of Spatial Experience in Young and Elderly Participants

Our spatial mental representations allow us to give refined descriptions of the environment in terms of the relative locations and distances between objects and landmarks. In this study, we investigated the effects of familiarity with the everyday environment, in terms of frequency of exploration and mode of transportation, on categorical and coordinate spatial relations, on young and elderly participants, controlling for socio-demographic factors. Participants were tested with a general anamnesis, a neuropsychological assessment, measures of explorations and the Landmark Positioning on a Map task. The results showed: (a) a modest difference in performance with categorical spatial relations; (b) a larger difference in coordinate spatial relations; (c) a significant moderating effect of age on the relationship between familiarity and spatial relations, with a stronger relation among the elderly than the young. Ceteris paribus, the role of direct experience with exploring their hometown on spatial mental representations appeared to be more important in the elderly than in the young. This advantage appears to make the elderly wiser and likely protects them from the detrimental effects of aging on spatial mental representations.