"When we navigate in a new environment, we are required to pay attention to our surroundings and to update our position using our own internal navigation system in order to reach our destination. Using GPS removes these requirements and renders navigation less cognitively demanding. In fact, people who travel along given routes using GPS gain less knowledge about those routes compared to people who travel the same routes without an aid, using a map, or after being guided by an experimenter. However, no studies have looked at whether GPS use has long-term effects on our internal navigation system, when we are required to find our way without a navigation aid."
"When we navigate without GPS in a new environment, there are two navigation strategies that we can use that depend on separate brain systems. One is the spatial memory strategy and involves learning the relative positions of landmarks and serves to form a cognitive map of the environment. This strategy critically relies on the hippocampus, a brain region heavily involved in episodic memory and relational memory. The other strategy is the stimulus-response strategy and involves learning a sequence of motor responses (e.g., turn left) from specific positions (e.g., next corner). Stimulus-response learning critically relies on the caudate nucleus, a brain region also responsible for habit learning (e.g., learning how to ride a bicycle). This strategy leads to more rigid behavior and allows us to navigate on 'auto-pilot' on routes that we travel frequently."
"Using GPS involves following step-by-step sensorimotor instructions, which is similar to learning stimulus-response associations (e.g., turn right at the next intersection, turn left in 500 m). In a cross-sectional study, we sought to determine whether individuals with greater GPS habits rely more on stimulus-response strategies and less on spatial memory strategies when they are required to navigate without GPS, and whether they have poorer cognitive mapping abilities and landmark encoding."
"There was no significant correlation between lifetime GPS experience and subjective sense-of-direction scores. Thus, it does not appear that participants who used GPS for more hours did so as a result of a subjectively poor sense of direction."
"We found a significant negative correlation between lifetime GPS experience (in hours) and performance on the first probe trial of the concurrent spatial discrimination learning task, and a marginally significant negative correlation with performance on both probe trials combined, indicating that people with more lifetime GPS experience use hippocampus-dependent spatial memory strategies to a lesser extent."
"With regards to GPS reliance, there was a significant negative correlation with both probe trials combined, which indicates that as GPS reliance increases, spatial memory strategy use decreases." "In terms of sense of GPS dependence, there was a significant positive correlation between sense of GPS dependence scores and the second probe trial of the concurrent spatial discrimination learning task. This indicates that those who feel more dependent on their GPS have a lower ability to learn from their mistakes in the first probe trial, regardless of their subjective sense of direction. There was also a significant correlation with both probe trials combined, indicating a lower use of spatial memory strategies in those who feel more dependent on their GPS."
"We also examined the question of whether perceived spatial abilities are related to actual navigational performance on the concurrent spatial discrimination learning task. Subjective sense-of-direction scores were significantly related to faster learning, and, surprisingly, to lower performance on the second probe trial, and on both trials combined."
On the 4-on-8 virtual maze, "We found a significant negative correlation between lifetime GPS experience and navigation strategy scores. This indicates that individuals with more lifetime GPS experience use hippocampus-dependent spatial memory strategies to a lesser extent, concordant with the concurrent spatial discrimination learning task probe results. People with greater lifetime GPS experience also had more difficulty forming a cognitive map, as evidenced by a significant negative correlation between lifetime GPS experience and map drawing scores. This can at least in part be explained by the fact that people with more lifetime GPS experience encoded fewer landmarks, as there were significant negative correlations between lifetime GPS experience and the average number of landmarks used while solving the task, as well as the number of landmarks they noticed in the environment."
Habitual use of GPS negatively impacts spatial memory during self-guided navigation
#neuroscience #solidstatelife #gps
