Cognitive Maps: Some People Make Them, Some People Struggle

How Do In-Car Navigation Aids Impair Expert Navigators' Spatial Learning Ability?

Reliance on digital navigation aids has already shown negative impacts on navigators' innate spatial abilities. How this happens is still an open research question. We report on an empirical study with twenty-four experienced (male) taxi drivers to evaluate the long-term impacts of in-car navigation system use on the spatial learning ability of these navigation experts. Specifically, we measured cognitive load by means of electroencephalography (EEG) coupled with eye tracking to assess their visuospatial attention allocation during a video-based route-following task while driving through an unknown urban environment. We found that long-term reliance on in-car navigation aids did not affect participants' visual attention allocation during spatial learning but rather limited their ability to encode viewed geographic information into memory, which, in turn, led to greater cognitive load, especially along route segments between intersections. Participants with greater dependence on in-car navigation aids performed worse on the spatial knowledge tests. Our combined behavioral and neuropsychological findings provide evidence for the impairment of expert navigators' spatial learning ability when exposed to long-term use of digital in-car navigation aids.

Not seeing the forest for the trees: combination of path integration and landmark cues in human virtual navigation

Introduction

In order to successfully move from place to place, our brain often combines sensory inputs from various sources by dynamically weighting spatial cues according to their reliability and relevance for a given task. Two of the most important cues in navigation are the spatial arrangement of landmarks in the environment, and the continuous path integration of travelled distances and changes in direction. Several studies have shown that Bayesian integration of cues provides a good explanation for navigation in environments dominated by small numbers of easily identifiable landmarks. However, it remains largely unclear how cues are combined in more complex environments.

Methods

To investigate how humans process and combine landmarks and path integration in complex environments, we conducted a series of triangle completion experiments in virtual reality, in which we varied the number of landmarks from an open steppe to a dense forest, thus going beyond the spatially simple environments that have been studied in the past. We analysed spatial behaviour at both the population and individual level with linear regression models and developed a computational model, based on maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), to infer the underlying combination of cues.

Results

Overall homing performance was optimal in an environment containing three landmarks arranged around the goal location. With more than three landmarks, individual differences between participants in the use of cues are striking. For some, the addition of landmarks does not worsen their performance, whereas for others it seems to impair their use of landmark information.

Discussion

It appears that navigation success in complex environments depends on the ability to identify the correct clearing around the goal location, suggesting that some participants may not be able to see the forest for the trees.

Getting LOST: A conceptual framework for supporting and enhancing spatial navigation in aging

Spatial navigation is more difficult and effortful for older than younger individuals, a shift which occurs for a variety of neurological, physical, and cognitive reasons associated with aging. Despite a large body of evidence documenting age-related deficits in spatial navigation, comparatively less research addresses how to facilitate more effective navigation behavior for older adults. Since navigation challenges arise for a variety of reasons in old age, a one-size-fits-all solution is unlikely to work. Here, we introduce a framework for the variety of spatial navigation challenges faced in aging, which we call LOST-Location, Orientation, Spatial mapping, and Transit. The LOST framework builds on evidence from the cognitive neuroscience of spatial navigation, which reveals distinct components underpinning human wayfinding. We evaluate research on navigational aids-devices and depictions-which help people find their way around; and we reflect on how navigation aids solve (or fail to solve) specific wayfinding difficulties faced by older adults. In summary, we emphasize a bespoke approach to improving spatial navigation in aging, which focuses on tailoring navigation solutions to specific navigation challenges. Our hope is that by providing precise support to older navigators, navigation opportunities can facilitate independence and exploration, while minimizing the danger of becoming lost. We conclude by delineating critical knowledge gaps in how to improve older adults' spatial navigation capacities that the novel LOST framework could guide to address. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Development and Aging Neuroscience > Cognition Neuroscience > Behavior.

How Can We Best Assess Spatial Skills? Practical and Conceptual Challenges

Spatial thinking skills are associated with performance, persistence, and achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) school subjects. Because STEM knowledge and skills are integral to developing a well-trained workforce within and beyond STEM, spatial skills have become a major focus of cognitive, developmental, and educational research. However, these efforts are greatly hampered by the current lack of access to reliable, valid, and well-normed spatial tests. Although there are hundreds of spatial tests, they are often hard to access and use, and information about their psychometric properties is frequently lacking. Additional problems include (1) substantial disagreement about what different spatial tests measure-even two tests with similar names may measure very different constructs; (2) the inability to measure some STEM-relevant spatial skills by any existing tests; and (3) many tests only being available for specific age groups. The first part of this report delineates these problems, as documented in a series of structured and open-ended interviews and surveys with colleagues. The second part outlines a roadmap for addressing the problems. We present possibilities for developing shared testing systems that would allow researchers to test many participants through the internet. We discuss technological innovations, such as virtual reality, which could facilitate the testing of navigation and other spatial skills. Developing a bank of testing resources will empower researchers and educators to explore and support spatial thinking in their disciplines, as well as drive the development of a comprehensive and coherent theoretical understanding of spatial thinking.

The format of the cognitive map depends on the structure of the environment

Humans and animals form cognitive maps that allow them to navigate through large-scale environments. Here we address a central unresolved question about these maps: whether they exhibit similar characteristics across all environments, or-alternatively-whether different environments yield different types of maps. To investigate this question, we examined spatial learning in three virtual environments: an open courtyard with patios connected by paths (open maze), a set of rooms connected by corridors (closed maze), and a set of isolated rooms connected only by teleporters (teleport maze). All three environments shared the same underlying topological graph structure. Postlearning tests showed that participants formed representations of the three environments that varied in accuracy, format, and individual variability. The open maze was most accurately remembered, followed by the closed maze, and then the teleport maze. In the open maze, most participants developed representations that reflected the Euclidean structure of the space, whereas in the teleport maze, most participants constructed representations that aligned more closely with a mental model of an interconnected graph. In the closed maze, substantial individual variability emerged, with some participants forming Euclidean representations and others forming graph-like representations. These results indicate that an environment's features shape the quality and nature of the spatial representations formed within it, determining whether spatial knowledge takes a Euclidean or graph-like format. Consequently, experimental findings obtained in any single environment may not generalize to others with different features. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Measuring configural spatial knowledge: Individual differences in correlations between pointing and shortcutting

People use environmental knowledge to maintain a sense of direction in daily life. This knowledge is typically measured by having people point to unseen locations (judgments of relative direction) or navigate efficiently in the environment (shortcutting). Some people can estimate directions precisely, while others point randomly. Similarly, some people take shortcuts not experienced during learning, while others mainly follow learned paths. Notably, few studies have directly tested the correlation between pointing and shortcutting performance. We compared pointing and shortcutting in two experiments, one using desktop virtual reality (VR) (N = 57) and one using immersive VR (N = 48). Participants learned a new environment by following a fixed route and were then asked to point to unseen locations and navigate to targets by the shortest path. Participants' performance was clustered into two groups using K-means clustering. One (lower ability) group pointed randomly and showed low internal consistency across trials in pointing, but were able to find efficient routes, and their pointing and efficiency scores were not correlated. The others (higher ability) pointed precisely, navigated by efficient routes, and their pointing and efficiency scores were correlated. These results suggest that with the same egocentric learning experience, the correlation between pointing and shortcutting depends on participants' learning ability, and internal consistency and discriminating power of the measures. Inconsistency and limited discriminating power can lead to low correlations and mask factors driving human variation. Psychometric properties, largely under-reported in spatial cognition, can advance our understanding of individual differences and cognitive processes for complex spatial tasks.

Induction of spatial anxiety in a virtual navigation environment

Spatial anxiety (i.e., feelings of apprehension and fear about navigating everyday environments) can adversely impact people's ability to reach desired locations and explore unfamiliar places. Prior research has either assessed spatial anxiety as an individual-difference variable or measured it as an outcome, but there are currently no experimental inductions to investigate its causal effects. To address this lacuna, we developed a novel protocol for inducing spatial anxiety within a virtual environment. Participants first learnt a route using directional arrows. Next, we removed the directional arrows and randomly assigned participants to navigate either the same route (n = 22; control condition) or a variation of this route in which we surreptitiously introduced unfamiliar paths and landmarks (n = 22; spatial-anxiety condition). The manipulation successfully induced transient (i.e., state-level) spatial anxiety and task stress but did not significantly reduce task enjoyment. Our findings lay the foundation for an experimental paradigm that will facilitate future work on the causal effects of spatial anxiety in navigational contexts. The experimental task is freely available via the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/uq4v7/ ).

Using a picture (or a thousand words) for supporting spatial knowledge of a complex virtual environment

External representations powerfully support and augment complex human behavior. When navigating, people often consult external representations to help them find the way to go, but do maps or verbal instructions improve spatial knowledge or support effective wayfinding? Here, we examine spatial knowledge with and without external representations in two studies where participants learn a complex virtual environment. In the first study, we asked participants to generate their own maps or verbal instructions, partway through learning. We found no evidence of improved spatial knowledge in a pointing task requiring participants to infer the direction between two targets, either on the same route or on different routes, and no differences between groups in accurately recreating a map of the target landmarks. However, as a methodological note, pointing was correlated with the accuracy of the maps that participants drew. In the second study, participants had access to an accurate map or set of verbal instructions that they could study while learning the layout of target landmarks. Again, we found no evidence of differentially improved spatial knowledge in the pointing task, although we did find that the map group could recreate a map of the target landmarks more accurately. However, overall improvement was high. There was evidence that the nature of improvement across all conditions was specific to initial navigation ability levels. Our findings add to a mixed literature on the role of external representations for navigation and suggest that more substantial intervention-more scaffolding, explicit training, enhanced visualization, perhaps with personalized sequencing-may be necessary to improve navigation ability.

Different Types of Survey-Based Environmental Representations: Egocentric vs. Allocentric Cognitive Maps

The goal of the current study was to show the existence of distinct types of survey-based environmental representations, egocentric and allocentric, and provide experimental evidence that they are formed by different types of navigational strategies, path integration and map-based navigation, respectively. After traversing an unfamiliar route, participants were either disoriented and asked to point to non-visible landmarks encountered on the route (Experiment 1) or presented with a secondary spatial working memory task while determining the spatial locations of objects on the route (Experiment 2). The results demonstrate a double dissociation between the navigational strategies underlying the formation of allocentric and egocentric survey-based representation. Specifically, only the individuals who generated egocentric survey-based representations of the route were affected by disorientation, suggesting they relied primarily on a path integration strategy combined with landmark/scene processing at each route segment. In contrast, only allocentric-survey mappers were affected by the secondary spatial working memory task, suggesting their use of map-based navigation. This research is the first to show that path integration, in conjunction with egocentric landmark processing, is a distinct standalone navigational strategy underpinning the formation of a unique type of environmental representation-the egocentric survey-based representation.

Representational integration and differentiation in the human hippocampus following goal-directed navigation

As we learn, dynamic memory processes build structured knowledge across our experiences. Such knowledge enables the formation of internal models of the world that we use to plan, make decisions, and act. Recent theorizing posits that mnemonic mechanisms of differentiation and integration - which at one level may seem to be at odds - both contribute to the emergence of structured knowledge. We tested this possibility using fMRI as human participants learned to navigate within local and global virtual environments over the course of 3 days. Pattern similarity analyses on entorhinal cortical and hippocampal patterns revealed evidence that differentiation and integration work concurrently to build local and global environmental representations, and that variability in integration relates to differences in navigation efficiency. These results offer new insights into the neural machinery and the underlying mechanisms that translate experiences into structured knowledge that allows us to navigate to achieve goals.

Understanding Differences in Wayfinding Strategies

Navigating to goal locations in a known environment (wayfinding) can be accomplished by different strategies, notably by taking habitual, well-learned routes (response strategy) or by inferring novel paths, such as shortcuts, from spatial knowledge of the environment's layout (place strategy). Human and animal neuroscience studies reveal that these strategies reflect different brain systems, with response strategies relying more on activation of the striatum and place strategies associated with activation of the hippocampus. In addition to individual differences in strategy, recent behavioral studies show sex differences such that men use place strategies more than women, and age differences such that older adults use more response strategies than younger adults. This paper takes a comprehensive multilevel approach to understanding these differences, characterizing wayfinding as a complex information processing task. This analysis reveals factors that affect navigation strategy, including availability of the relevant type of environmental knowledge, momentary access to this knowledge, trade-offs between physical and mental effort in different navigation contexts, and risk taking. We consider how strategies are influenced by the computational demands of a navigation task and by factors that affect the neural circuits underlying navigation. We also discuss limitations of laboratory studies to date and outline priorities for future research, including relating wayfinding strategies to independent measures of spatial knowledge, and studying wayfinding strategies in naturalistic environments.

Wayfinding and path integration deficits detected using a virtual reality mobile app in patients with traumatic brain injury

The ability to navigate is supported by a wide network of brain areas which are particularly vulnerable to disruption brain injury, including traumatic brain injury (TBI). Wayfinding and the ability to orient back to the direction you have recently come (path integration) may likely be impacted in daily life but have so far not been tested with patients with TBI. Here, we assessed spatial navigation in thirty-eight participants, fifteen of whom had a history of TBI, and twenty-three control participants. Self-estimated spatial navigation ability was assessed using the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction (SBSOD) scale. No significant difference between TBI patients and a control group was identified. Rather, results indicated that both participant groups demonstrated 'good' self-inferred spatial navigational ability on the SBSOD scale. Objective navigation ability was tested via the virtual mobile app test Sea Hero Quest (SHQ), which has been shown to predict real-world navigation difficulties and assesses (a) wayfinding across several environments and (b) path integration. Compared to a sub-sample of 13 control participants, a matched subsample of 10 TBI patients demonstrated generally poorer performance on all wayfinding environments tested. Further analysis revealed that TBI participants consistently spent a shorter duration viewing a map prior to navigating to goals. Patients showed mixed performance on the path integration task, with poor performance evident when proximal cues were absent. Our results provide preliminary evidence that TBI impacts both wayfinding and, to some extent, path integration. The findings suggest long-lasting clinical difficulties experienced in TBI patients affect both wayfinding and to some degree path integration ability.

Building a Cognitive Science of Human Variation: Individual Differences in Spatial Navigation

The aim of this issue is to take stock of cognitive science of human variation in the field of spatial navigation, an important domain in which debates have often assumed an invariant human mind. Addressing the challenge of individual differences requires cognitive scientists to change their practices in several ways. First, we need to consider how to design measures and paradigms that have adequate psychometric characteristics. Second, using reliable, efficient, and valid measures, we need to examine how people vary from time to time, both in the short run due to emotions, such as stress or time pressure, and in the longer run, due to training or living in physical environments that require wayfinding skills. Third, we need to study people different from the traditional college participants, including variations in age, gender, education, culture, physical environment, and possible interactions among these variables.

Importance of Path Planning Variability: A Simulation Study

Individuals vary in the way they navigate through space. Some take novel shortcuts, while others rely on known routes to find their way around. We wondered how and why there is so much variation in the population. To address this, we first compared the trajectories of 368 human subjects navigating a virtual maze with simulated trajectories. The simulated trajectories were generated by strategy-based path planning algorithms from robotics. Based on the similarities between human trajectories and different strategy-based simulated trajectories, we found that there is a variation in the type of strategy individuals apply to navigate space, as well as variation within individuals on a trial-by-trial basis. Moreover, we observed variation within a trial when subjects occasionally switched the navigation strategies halfway through a trajectory. In these cases, subjects started with a route strategy, in which they followed a familiar path, and then switched to a survey strategy, in which they took shortcuts by considering the layout of the environment. Then we simulated a second set of trajectories using five different but comparable artificial maps. These trajectories produced the similar pattern of strategy variation within and between trials. Furthermore, we varied the relative cost, that is, the assumed mental effort or required timesteps to choose a learned route over alternative paths. When the learned route was relatively costly, the simulated agents tended to take shortcuts. Conversely, when the learned route was less costly, the simulated agents showed preference toward a route strategy. We suggest that cost or assumed mental effort may be the reason why in previous studies, subjects used survey knowledge when instructed to take the shortest path. We suggest that this variation we observe in humans may be beneficial for robotic swarms or collections of autonomous agents during information gathering.

A comparison of reinforcement learning models of human spatial navigation

Reinforcement learning (RL) models have been influential in characterizing human learning and decision making, but few studies apply them to characterizing human spatial navigation and even fewer systematically compare RL models under different navigation requirements. Because RL can characterize one's learning strategies quantitatively and in a continuous manner, and one's consistency of using such strategies, it can provide a novel and important perspective for understanding the marked individual differences in human navigation and disentangle navigation strategies from navigation performance. One-hundred and fourteen participants completed wayfinding tasks in a virtual environment where different phases manipulated navigation requirements. We compared performance of five RL models (3 model-free, 1 model-based and 1 "hybrid") at fitting navigation behaviors in different phases. Supporting implications from prior literature, the hybrid model provided the best fit regardless of navigation requirements, suggesting the majority of participants rely on a blend of model-free (route-following) and model-based (cognitive mapping) learning in such navigation scenarios. Furthermore, consistent with a key prediction, there was a correlation in the hybrid model between the weight on model-based learning (i.e., navigation strategy) and the navigator's exploration vs. exploitation tendency (i.e., consistency of using such navigation strategy), which was modulated by navigation task requirements. Together, we not only show how computational findings from RL align with the spatial navigation literature, but also reveal how the relationship between navigation strategy and a person's consistency using such strategies changes as navigation requirements change.

Incidental visual memory and metamemory for a famous monument

In the context of urban life, some monuments are ecologically relevant landmarks for some people. However, previous research on the topic of incidental memory of everyday settings has relatively ignored how people remember monuments from their environments. The present work examined visual memory (i.e., recall and recognition) and metamemory for the Puerta de Alcalá (“Alcalá Gate” in English), a famous ornamental monument in the city of Madrid (Spain). Despite the monument’s perceptual simplicity, participants showed poor visual memory of it in a recall task (drawings), as only 16% of them correctly drew the monument; moreover, only 45% of the participants correctly recognized it in a four-alternative forced-choice test. In contrast, participants reported higher levels of confidence for both recall and recognition (51.57 ± 20.5 and 79.54 ± 19.6, respectively on a 100-point scale). Importantly, memory performance did not vary as a function of the number of years lived near the monument or of the self-reported contact frequency (familiarity) with the monument. The current findings have relevant implications in understanding the link between visual attention, memory, and metamemory in real-world settings.

A User-Centered Evaluation of Wayfinding in Outpatient Units of Public Hospitals in Malaysia: UMMC as a Case Study

The difficulty of finding one’s way in a complex structure has been a long-standing issue of many buildings with highly institutionalized functions. This has been especially observed in hospital buildings as an issue that can cause various adverse outcomes for both the institution and the user. Therefore, regular evaluation of the existing wayfinding system and its efficacy is needed. This study aimed to evaluate the wayfinding system efficacy in an outpatient unit of a Malaysian public hospital in order to provide information that could help guide future upgrade initiatives for existing healthcare facilities’ wayfinding systems. This study employed a user survey questionnaire to evaluate the wayfinding system currently in use and investigate users’ needs for a better wayfinding system. The statistical analysis of the gathered data indicated a higher than average level of dissatisfaction regarding the existing wayfinding system. The findings of the study suggest the need for an upgrade in the physical environment. Furthermore, the results of this study suggest the need to devise a set of guidelines to be employed when designing wayfinding systems in Malaysia’s public hospitals.

Flexible Use of Spatial Frames of Reference for Object-Location Memory in Older Adults

In memory, representations of spatial features are stored in different reference frames; features relative to our position are stored egocentrically and features relative to each other are stored allocentrically. Accessing these representations engages many cognitive and neural resources, and so is susceptible to age-related breakdown. Yet, recent findings on the heterogeneity of cognitive function and spatial ability in healthy older adults suggest that aging may not uniformly impact the flexible use of spatial representations. These factors have yet to be explored in a precisely controlled task that explicitly manipulates spatial frames of reference across learning and retrieval. We used a lab-based virtual reality task to investigate the relationship between object-location memory across frames of reference, cognitive status, and self-reported spatial ability. Memory error was measured using Euclidean distance from studied object locations to participants' responses at testing. Older adults recalled object locations less accurately when they switched between frames of reference from learning to testing, compared with when they remained in the same frame of reference. They also showed an allocentric learning advantage, producing less error when switching from an allocentric to an egocentric frame of reference, compared with the reverse direction of switching. Higher MoCA scores and better self-assessed spatial ability predicted less memory error, especially when learning occurred egocentrically. We suggest that egocentric learning deficits are driven by difficulty in binding multiple viewpoints into a coherent representation. Finally, we highlight the heterogeneity of spatial memory performance in healthy older adults as a potential cognitive marker for neurodegeneration, beyond normal aging.

Cognitive maps of social features enable flexible inference in social networks

In order to navigate a complex web of relationships, an individual must learn and represent the connections between people in a social network. However, the sheer size and complexity of the social world makes it impossible to acquire firsthand knowledge of all relations within a network, suggesting that people must make inferences about unobserved relationships to fill in the gaps. Across three studies (n = 328), we show that people can encode information about social features (e.g., hobbies, clubs) and subsequently deploy this knowledge to infer the existence of unobserved friendships in the network. Using computational models, we test various feature-based mechanisms that could support such inferences. We find that people's ability to successfully generalize depends on two representational strategies: a simple but inflexible similarity heuristic that leverages homophily, and a complex but flexible cognitive map that encodes the statistical relationships between social features and friendships. Together, our studies reveal that people can build cognitive maps encoding arbitrary patterns of latent relations in many abstract feature spaces, allowing social networks to be represented in a flexible format. Moreover, these findings shed light on open questions across disciplines about how people learn and represent social networks and may have implications for generating more human-like link prediction in machine learning algorithms.

Route selection in non-Euclidean virtual environments

The way people choose routes through unfamiliar environments provides clues about the underlying representation they use. One way to test the nature of observers' representation is to manipulate the structure of the scene as they move through it and measure which aspects of performance are significantly affected and which are not. We recorded the routes that participants took in virtual mazes to reach previously-viewed targets. The mazes were either physically realizable or impossible (the latter contained 'wormholes' that altered the layout of the scene without any visible change at that moment). We found that participants could usually find the shortest route between remembered objects even in physically impossible environments, despite the gross failures in pointing that an earlier study showed are evident in the physically impossible environment. In the physically impossible conditions, the choice made at a junction was influenced to a greater extent by whether that choice had, in the past, led to the discovery of a target (compared to a shortest-distance prediction). In the physically realizable mazes, on the other hand, junction choices were determined more by the shortest distance to the target. This pattern of results is compatible with the idea of a graph-like representation of space that can include information about previous success or failure for traversing each edge and also information about the distance between nodes. Our results suggest that complexity of the maze may dictate which of these is more important in influencing navigational choices.

Hippocampal volume and navigational ability: The map(ping) is not to scale

A critical question regards the neural basis of complex cognitive skill acquisition. One extensively studied skill is navigation, with evidence suggesting that humans vary widely in navigation abilities. Yet, data supporting the neural underpinning of these individual differences are mixed. Some evidence suggests robust structure-behavior relations between hippocampal volume and navigation ability, whereas other experiments show no such correlation. We focus on several possibilities for these discrepancies: 1) volumetric hippocampal changes are relevant only at the extreme ranges of navigational abilities; 2) hippocampal volume correlates across individuals but only for specific measures of navigation skill; 3) hippocampal volume itself does not correlate with navigation skill acquisition; connectivity patterns are more relevant. To explore this third possibility, we present a model emphasizing functional connectivity changes, particularly to extra-hippocampal structures. This class of models arises from the premise that navigation is dynamic and that good navigators flexibly solve spatial challenges. These models pave the way for research on other skills and provide more precise predictions for the neural basis of skill acquisition.

Single-trial regression of spatial exploration behavior indicates posterior EEG alpha modulation to reflect egocentric coding

Learning to navigate uncharted terrain is a key cognitive ability that emerges as a deeply embodied process, with eye movements and locomotion proving most useful to sample the environment. We studied healthy human participants during active spatial learning of room-scale virtual reality (VR) mazes. In the invisible maze task, participants wearing a wireless electroencephalography (EEG) headset were free to explore their surroundings, only given the objective to build and foster a mental spatial representation of their environment. Spatial uncertainty was resolved by touching otherwise invisible walls that were briefly rendered visible inside VR, similar to finding your way in the dark. We showcase the capabilities of mobile brain/body imaging using VR, demonstrating several analysis approaches based on general linear models (GLMs) to reveal behavior-dependent brain dynamics. Confirming spatial learning via drawn sketch maps, we employed motion capture to image spatial exploration behavior describing a shift from initial exploration to subsequent exploitation of the mental representation. Using independent component analysis, the current work specifically targeted oscillations in response to wall touches reflecting isolated spatial learning events arising in deep posterior EEG sources located in the retrosplenial complex. Single-trial regression identified significant modulation of alpha oscillations by the immediate, egocentric, exploration behavior. When encountering novel walls, as well as with increasing walking distance between subsequent touches when encountering novel walls, alpha power decreased. We conclude that these oscillations play a prominent role during egocentric evidencing of allocentric spatial hypotheses.

Structuring Knowledge with Cognitive Maps and Cognitive Graphs

Humans and animals use mental representations of the spatial structure of the world to navigate. The classical view is that these representations take the form of Euclidean cognitive maps, but alternative theories suggest that they are cognitive graphs consisting of locations connected by paths. We review evidence suggesting that both map-like and graph-like representations exist in the mind/brain that rely on partially overlapping neural systems. Maps and graphs can operate simultaneously or separately, and they may be applied to both spatial and nonspatial knowledge. By providing structural frameworks for complex information, cognitive maps and cognitive graphs may provide fundamental organizing schemata that allow us to navigate in physical, social, and conceptual spaces.

Altered structure and functional connectivity of the hippocampus are associated with social and mathematical difficulties in nonverbal learning disability

The hippocampus is known to play a critical role in a variety of complex abilities, including visual-spatial reasoning, social functioning, and math. Nonverbal learning disability (NVLD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in visual-spatial reasoning that are accompanied by impairment in social function or mathematics, as well as motor or executive function skills. Despite the overlap between behaviors supported by the hippocampus and impairments in NVLD, the structure and function of the hippocampus in NVLD has not been studied. To address this gap in the literature, we first compared hippocampal volume and resting-state functional connectivity in children with NVLD (n = 24) and typically developing (TD) children (n = 20). We then explored associations between hippocampal structure, connectivity, and performance on measures of spatial, social, and mathematical ability. Relative to TD children, those with NVLD showed significant reductions in left hippocampal volume and greater hippocampal-cerebellar connectivity. In children with NVLD, reduced hippocampal volume associated with worse mathematical problem solving. Although children with NVLD exhibited more social problems (social responsiveness scale [SRS]) and higher hippocampal-cerebellar connectivity relative to TD children, greater connectivity was associated with fewer social problems among children with NVLD but not TD children. Such an effect may suggest a compensatory mechanism. These structural and functional alterations of the hippocampus may disrupt its putative role in organizing conceptual frameworks through cognitive mapping, thus contributing to the cross-domain difficulties that characterize NVLD.

Construction of Cognitive Maps to Improve Reading Performance by Text Signaling: Reading Text on Paper Compared to on Screen

Reading text from a screen has been shown to be less effective compared with reading text from paper. Various signals may provide both background information and navigational cues, and may promote the construction of cognitive maps during on-screen reading, thus improving reading performance. This study randomly divided 75 college students into a paper reading group and an on-screen reading group. Both groups were tested for navigation and reading comprehension in response to three different forms of signaling (plain text, physical signaling, and verbal signaling). The results showed that when plain text was presented, the navigation and comprehension scores of the paper reading group were significantly higher than those of the on-screen reading group. However, no significant difference was found between both groups under signaling conditions. The navigation and comprehension scores of both groups were significantly higher under signaling conditions than under plain text. Moreover, the comprehension score of the on-screen reading group under physical signaling was significantly higher than that under verbal signaling. This research suggested that signals help to construct cognitive maps and effectively improve reading performance. Besides, physical signaling, such as underlining and bold formatting, is more effective for on-screen reading. The present study provides a practical and effective approach for improving on-screen reading based on cognitive map theory.

The role of working memory capacity in spatial learning depends on spatial information integration difficulty in the environment

A substantial amount of research has been conducted to uncover factors underlying the pronounced individual differences in spatial navigation. Spatial working memory capacity (SWM) is shown to be one important factor. In other domains such as reading comprehension, the role of working memory capacity in task performance differences depends on the difficulty of other task demands. In the current study, we investigated whether, similarly, the relationship between SWM and spatial performance was dependent on the difficulty of spatial information integration in the environment. Based on our prior work, spatial information integration difficulty depends on (a) difficulty in observing spatial relationships between locations of interest in the environment and (b) the individual's ability to integrate such relationships. Leveraging virtual reality, we manipulated the difficulty in observing the spatial relationships during learning by changing the visibility of the buildings, and measured individual's self-report sense of direction (SOD) which modulates the ability to integrate such relationships under different degrees of visibility. We consistently found that in the "easy" spatial integration condition (high SOD with high visibility), high SWM did not significantly improve spatial learning. The same pattern was observed in the difficult condition (low SOD with low visibility). On the other hand, high SWM improved spatial learning for medium difficulty (high SOD with low visibility, or vice versa). Together, our results reveal that the role of SWM in spatial learning differences depends on spatial integration difficulty. Our results also have significant applied implications for using virtual reality to target and facilitate spatial learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

A pilot study evaluating the effects of concussion on the ability to form cognitive maps for spatial orientation in adolescent hockey players

OBJECTIVE

In this pilot study, we investigated the impact of a sport-related concussion (SRC) on the ability to form cognitive maps, mental representations of the environment that are critical for spatial orientation and navigation.

PARTICIPANTS

We recruited 18 adolescent hockey players suffering from a SRC, and 19 age, sex and handedness-matched hockey players with no history of concussion.

MAIN MEASURE

We asked participants to perform the Spatial Configuration Task (SCT), a computerized tool used to quantitatively measure the ability of the individuals to form cognitive maps.

RESULTS

We found that athletes with a concussion performed significantly worse than controls on the SCT (F(1,34) = 5.82, p =.021, [Formula: see text] = -0.72), confirming a negative effect of a SRC on the ability to form cognitive maps. We found no significant difference between groups in average response time, and no significant correlation between participants' performance at the SCT and reported symptoms of concussion as rated on the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT5).

CONCLUSIONS

Consistent with the integrity of extended neural networks required for effective spatial orientation and navigation, the findings of our pilot study provide preliminary evidence suggesting that a SRC may affect the ability to familiarize with a spatial surrounding and orient within it.

The role of the fornix in human navigational learning

Experiments on rodents have demonstrated that transecting the white matter fibre pathway linking the hippocampus with an array of cortical and subcortical structures - the fornix - impairs flexible navigational learning in the Morris Water Maze (MWM), as well as similar spatial learning tasks. While diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) studies in humans have linked inter-individual differences in fornix microstructure to episodic memory abilities, its role in human spatial learning is currently unknown. We used high-angular resolution diffusion MRI combined with constrained spherical deconvolution-based tractography, to ask whether inter-individual differences in fornix microstructure in healthy young adults would be associated with spatial learning in a virtual reality navigation task. To efficiently capture individual learning across trials, we adopted a novel curve fitting approach to estimate a single index of learning rate. We found a statistically significant correlation between learning rate and the microstructure (mean diffusivity) of the fornix, but not that of a comparison tract linking occipital and anterior temporal cortices (the inferior longitudinal fasciculus, ILF). Further, this correlation remained significant when controlling for both hippocampal volume and participant gender. These findings extend previous animal studies by demonstrating the functional relevance of the fornix for human spatial learning in a virtual reality environment, and highlight the importance of a distributed neuroanatomical network, underpinned by key white matter pathways, such as the fornix, in complex spatial behaviour.

A Novel Training Program to Improve Human Spatial Orientation: Preliminary Findings

The ability to form a mental representation of the surroundings is a critical skill for spatial navigation and orientation in humans. Such a mental representation is known as a "cognitive map" and is formed as individuals familiarize themselves with the surrounding, providing detailed information about salient environmental landmarks and their spatial relationships. Despite evidence of the malleability and potential for training spatial orientation skills in humans, it remains unknown if the specific ability to form cognitive maps can be improved by an appositely developed training program. Here, we present a newly developed computerized 12-days training program in a virtual environment designed specifically to stimulate the acquisition of this important skill. We asked 15 healthy volunteers to complete the training program and perform a comprehensive spatial behavioral assessment before and after the training. We asked participants to become familiar with the environment by navigating a small area before slowly building them up to navigate within the larger and more complex environment; we asked them to travel back and forth between environmental landmarks until they had built an understanding of where those landmarks resided with respect to one another. This process repeated until participants had visited every landmark in the virtual town and had learned where each landmark resided with respect to the others. The results of this study confirmed the feasibility of the training program and suggested an improvement in the ability of participants to form mental representations of the spatial surrounding. This study provides preliminary findings on the feasibility of a 12-days program in training spatial orientation skills. We discuss the utility and potential impact of this training program in the lives of the many individuals affected by topographical disorientation as a result of an acquired or developmental condition.

Cognitive mapping style relates to posterior-anterior hippocampal volume ratio

As London taxi drivers acquire "the knowledge" and develop a detailed cognitive map of London, their posterior hippocampi (pHPC) gradually increase in volume, reflecting an increasing pHPC/aHPC volume ratio. In the mnemonic domain, greater pHPC/aHPC volume ratios in young adults have been found to relate to better recollection ability, indicating that the balance between pHPC and aHPC volumes might be reflective of cross-domain individual differences. Here, we examined participants' self-reported use of cognitive map-based navigational strategies in relation to their pHPC/aHPC hippocampal volume ratio. We find that greater reported cognitive map use was related to significantly greater posterior, relative to anterior, hippocampal volume in two separate samples of young adults. Further, greater reported cognitive map usage correlated with better performance on a self-initiated navigation task. Together, these data help to advance our understanding of differences between aHPC and pHPC and the greater role of pHPC in spatial mapping.

Reptilian Cognition: A More Complex Picture via Integration of Neurological Mechanisms, Behavioral Constraints, and Evolutionary Context

Unlike birds and mammals, reptiles are commonly thought to possess only the most rudimentary means of interacting with their environments, reflexively responding to sensory information to the near exclusion of higher cognitive function. However, reptilian brains, though structurally somewhat different from those of mammals and birds, use many of the same cellular and molecular processes to support complex behaviors in homologous brain regions. Here, the neurological mechanisms supporting reptilian cognition are reviewed, focusing specifically on spatial cognition and the hippocampus. These processes are compared to those seen in mammals and birds within an ecologically and evolutionarily relevant context. By viewing reptilian cognition through an integrative framework, a more robust understanding of reptile cognition is gleaned. Doing so yields a broader view of the evolutionarily conserved molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie cognitive function and a better understanding of the factors that led to the evolution of complex cognition.

How does navigation system behavior influence human behavior?

Navigation systems are ubiquitous tools to assist wayfinders of the mobile information society with various navigational tasks. Whenever such systems assist with self-localization and path planning, they reduce human effort for navigating. Automated navigation assistance benefits navigation performance, but research seems to show that it negatively affects attention to environment properties, spatial knowledge acquisition, and retention of spatial information. Very little is known about how to design navigation systems for pedestrian navigation that increase both navigation performance and spatial knowledge acquisition. To this end, we empirically tested participants (N = 64) using four different navigation system behaviors (between-subject design). Two cognitive processes with varying levels of automation, self-localization and allocation of attention, define navigation system behaviors: either the system automatically executes one of the processes (high level of automation), or the system leaves the decision of when and where to execute the process to the navigator (low level of automation). In two experimental phases, we applied a novel empirical framework for evaluating spatial knowledge acquisition in a real-world outdoor urban environment. First, participants followed a route assisted by a navigation system and, simultaneously, incidentally acquired spatial knowledge. Second, participants reversed the route using the spatial knowledge acquired during the assisted phase, this time without the aid of the navigation system. Results of the route-following phase did not reveal differences in navigation performance across groups using different navigation system behaviors. However, participants using systems with higher levels of automation seemed not to acquire enough spatial knowledge to reverse the route without navigation errors. Furthermore, employing novel methods to analyze mobile eye tracking data revealed distinct patterns of human gaze behavior over time and space. We thus can demonstrate how to increase spatial knowledge acquisition without harming navigation performance when using navigation systems, and how to influence human navigation behavior with varying navigation system behavior. Thus, we provide key findings for the design of intelligent automated navigation systems in real-world scenarios.