Human Spatial Navigation - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691171742 ISBN 13: 9780691171746

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Humans possess a range of navigation and orientation abilities, from the ordinary to the extraordinary. All of us must move from one location to the next, following habitual routes and avoiding getting lost. While there is more to learn about how the brain underlies our ability to navigate, neuroscience and psychology have begun to converge on some important answers. In Human Spatial Navigation, four leading expertstackle fundamental and unique issues to produce the first book-length investigation into this subject.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Arne D. Ekstrom is associate professor of psychology at the University of Arizona. Hugo J. Spiers is associate professor of neuroscience at University College London. Véronique D. Bohbot is associate professor of psychiatry at McGill University. R. Shayna Rosenbaum is professor of psychology at York University.

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"In this book, four outstanding researchers present a synthesis of what is currently known about human spatial navigation. A must-read for anyone interested in the brain and cognition in general, and spatial cognition in particular."--Lynn Nadel, University of Arizona

"Human Spatial Navigation gives newcomers a clear and engaging introduction to an exciting and burgeoning research area. Necessarily selective, this book will whet readers’ tastes to learn more about a rich and important topic--how navigation works and how it goes awry."--Nora S. Newcombe, Temple University

"Synthesizing a large body of animal and human studies, this book provides a much-needed overview of the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying spatial navigation. It also describes the clinical literature in this field and shows the links between memory and navigation. The very first textbook on human spatial navigation, it will be invaluable to undergraduate students and researchers."--Thomas Wolbers, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases

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Human Spatial Navigation

By Arne D. Ekstrom, Hugo J. Spiers, Véronique D. Bohbot, R. Shayna Rosenbaum

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2018 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-17174-6

Contents

Preface, ix, 
1 Introduction, 1, 
2 Behavioral Studies of Human Spatial Navigation, 23, 
3 The Neural Basis of Spatial Navigation, 45, 
4 Landmarks and Visually Guided Navigation, 66, 
5 Keeping the Goal in Mind: Navigational Guidance Systems, 85, 
6 Response-based Navigation and the Cognitive Map, 97, 
7 How Healthy Aging and Clinical Disorders Affect Navigation, 113, 
8 The Navigation Network, 128, 
9 Navigation and Memory, 146, 
10 Conclusion, 164, 
References, 169, 
Index, 197, 

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

As researchers in human spatial navigation, we are frequently told: "I'm such a bad navigator, you should study me." Indeed, almost half of the college students in one study rated their navigational abilities as below average (Hegarty et al. 2006). One particular complaint is trouble when navigating in new places. These types of complaints fall into a category of navigational errors that we will discuss in some detail in this book: our tendency to favor habitual, well-learned routes, affecting the ability to reason about new spatial layouts. These complaints showcase how navigation is often error prone and, for many people, a source of significant frustration. They also highlight how all forms of navigation are not the same and can differ simply based on our familiarity with a route.

Difficulties navigating can lead to serious consequences for individuals with neurological conditions affecting brain function. One particularly devastating example of this is Alzheimer's disease and dementia, where patients often report difficulty navigating and a tendency to get lost, even in familiar neighborhoods (Cushman, Stein, and Duffy 2008; Kunz et al. 2015). As the disease worsens, some patients become lost even in highly familiar neighborhoods, wandering along the paths of telephone lines into the wilderness (Johnson 2010). Even normal aging involves a decline in spatial navigation, with changes in the ability to navigate using landmarks and a tendency to favor using familiar paths. Thus, errors in everyday navigation are not only a part of life but also a hallmark of neurobiological diseases and even healthy aging (Moffat 2009).

Is it possible that we as a species are just poor navigators? Evidence from studies of navigation in other species might readily seem to support this argument. Sea turtles can navigate thousands of kilometers in the ocean to search for food using combinations of ocean currents and sensitivity to the magnetic pole, and they can still manage to find their way back to the same nesting grounds (Lohmann and Lohmann 1996). Desert ants search for food at distances of up to hundreds of meters from their nest, covering a radius that would be equivalent, in human terms, to about 38 kilometers. Yet these ants, once they find food, can plot a direct course back to their nest and find it within 1 square centimeter of error (Wehner and Srinivasan 1981; Gallistel 1990). While the mechanisms underlying these nonhuman feats of navigation differ, there is little doubt that other species are capable of incredible feats of navigation, which nonetheless would appear central to their daily survival.

Still, if we consider human history, there are many examples of navigational feats that are so remarkable they might seem to better represent those of a sea turtle or a desert ant. Perhaps some of the most striking examples, which we will discuss in detail, involve humans navigating — in some cases, thousands of kilometers across the open ocean — with few or no mechanical aids. These feats will also introduce us to important and useful concepts we will use throughout this book. Our first example involves Puluwat sailors, a seafaring people in the Polynesian Islands, which in turn will help us understand the important concepts of externally versus internally guided navigation and the idea of path integration. Lest we think that Puluwat navigation represents a feat that only a highly adept, practiced, and skilled subset of our population is capable of, we will also consider the journey of the James Caird, in which stranded sailors navigated nearly 1000 kilometers to safety in a completely unfamiliar part of the Antarctic Ocean. The journey of the James Caird, in turn, will help us understand the idea of the cognitive map. Last, we discuss how exceptional navigational skills in Inuit living above the tree line, close to the North Pole, are fundamental to their survival in some of the harshest living conditions of the world.

Navigation of the Puluwat: Path Integration in Action

Puluwat is a small island in the southern Pacific Ocean that is part of a larger chain of islands known today as the Carolines. The Puluwat are renowned within the Carolines for their wayfinding abilities, which include navigating between islands separated by distances of up to 800 kilometers. Much of their navigation occurs across the open ocean with no visible islands or landmarks. In fact, recent attempts to circumnavigate the globe using no mechanical aids (spearheaded by Nainoa Thompson) involved training with such Polynesian sailors in order to perfect their techniques (Parker 2015). So what do the Puluwat know that the rest of us do not?

For centuries, the Puluwat have relied on multiple nonmechanical internal and external cues to navigate. The internal cues, which we will discuss in detail throughout this book, include using mental estimates of direction and distances over the course of their journey; we term this approach to navigation path integration. The external cues involve using the stars as a compass and other landmarks, like reefs and islands, as reference points. These achievements are quite amazing when one considers the specifics involved. The Puluwat outrigger sailing canoes are approximately six to nine meters in length and about two meters across and must accommodate groups of five to six people, including a navigator. Yet the Puluwat can navigate these boats between islands even over great distances, successfully arriving at their destination and returning home with little problem (Gladwin 1970). How is this possible? What navigational strategies do these sailors employ?

To learn to navigate, the Puluwat spend their first decades of life in an apprenticeship that focuses on one of two different schools of navigational training: Warieng and Fanur (figure 1.1A). One aspect of training focuses on learning relevant external cues: the locations of the constellations within the sky and how these change over the course of the night from sundown to sunrise. The stars serve as a basic compass system, providing Puluwat sailors with a bearing to maintain their course. For example, if a sailor wishes to plot a course to an island such as Satawal, he would use the star Beta Aquilae, which provides an approximate heading direction for arriving at this island (figure 1.1B; in our terminology, this would be approximately northwest). However, the star course they are taught also takes into consideration the ocean currents surrounding these islands. Thus, using Beta Aquilae as a navigation compass takes into account the slight push northward that will occur owing to typical currents and is thus slightly southward of the true goal. In this way, the Puluwat use...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691171742
• ISBN 13: 9780691171746
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 216
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland