Lecture 15 - Lab Class on Spatial Navigation Flashcards
Spatial navigation involves the coordination of many different senses and cognitive processes, including,…
Visual stimuli, smell, sound, movement, and memory, and recognition of landmarks, objects, directions etc.
What are two types of navigation discussed?
Egocentric and allocentric navigation.
What is egocentric navigation?
Egocentric navigation is the viewing landmarks as relative to the self.
What is allocentric navigation?
Allocentric navigation involves viewing landmarks and location relative to other landmarks and location. I.e. location is viewer-independent.
What type of navigation requires a cognitive map?
Allocentric navigation.
What type of navigation is ROUTE NAVIGATION?
Egocentric navigation.
When using a map, what type of navigation is being used?
Allocentric navigation. Map use generally involves cardinal directions.
When we engage in navigation, what types of navigation do we use?
It is thought that we both use cognitive maps, as well as a viewer-centric landmark or egocentric approach as well.
Who first proposed the idea of a cognitive or mental map and what was the experiment used?
Tolman in the 1940s. He conducted experiments with rats and mazes and found that rats were quickly able to adjust their route and obtain the food, even if their preferred route was blocked.
What is DTD and who coined this term?
DTD refers to Developmental Topographic Disorientation and was first coined by Iaria et al in 2009.
What are some of the features of Developmental Topographic Disorientation?
Spatial disorientation and inability to spatially navigate in the absence of an acquired brain injury, the person normal IQ scores, absence of learning disorder.
What were some of the interesting findings from Malanchini et al (2020)’s study on heritability/genetic aspect of navigation ability?
Malanchini et al found that there was a Navigation factor that accounted for the navigation ability of twins and that this factor was highly heritable/related to genetics.
What did Coutrot et al (2018) find in regards to navigation ability and cultural influences?
They found that higher income countries had higher navigational skills. I find this data quite counter-intuitive and wonder if this is related to the fact that the test used was a computer game style test.
In 2014 the Nobel Prize went to O’Keefe, Moser and Moser for discovering what?
They discovered that rats had navigation-specific neurons in their hippocampi.
Is there evidence that there is a gender difference in navigation ability?
Yes. There has been some evidence that males are more efficient at navigational tasks and make less error in these tasks.
