Online mobile map effect: how smartphone map use impairs spatial memory

Sugimoto, Masashi; Kusumi, Takashi; Nagata, Noriko; Ishikawa, Takumi

doi:10.1080/13875868.2021.1969401

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…This pattern of results suggests the importance of maintaining and training the individual VSWM, despite its age changes [69][70][71], given that it represents an ability related to every day successful spatial behaviors and experiences. Regarding the relationship found between VSWM capacity and higher GPS use, this appears to be in contrast with evidence suggesting that GPS may not facilitate the construction of cognitive maps [24,25]. It could be that people with higher spatial competencies are able to use the technology aid functionally and actively.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 78%

“…Our results also showed a relationship between increasing age and the lower use of GPS as well as greater use of verbal directions, although it was modest. Concerning GPS use, recent evidence suggested its detrimental role in spatial knowledge acquisition in the young [24]. However, it seems to be a good device for helping older adults to orient to the environment [35].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, maps are an effective tool for navigation performance accuracy. In contrast, to date, the use of GPS (navigator) seems not to facilitate the construction of cognitive maps and navigation performance [24,25], and its use seems to be a distraction from one's surroundings [19,[24][25][26]. Ishikawa and colleagues [27]) found that participants who used GPS traveled longer distances, stopped more often during their navigation experiences, and had lower levels of the recall of the environment learned compared with those who used maps or had no aids.…”

Section: Use Of Navigation Aidsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several individual factors relating to their spatial behaviors should be considered and thoroughly investigated in future studies to support older people's mobility and interest in exploring the environment. For example, their use of GPS for navigation should be analyzed in-depth, given our increased reliance on GPS, even in aging [24,35], and the mixed findings on its influence on young and older adults' navigation accuracy [35]. Regarding the various individual differences relating to successful spatial behaviors, future studies could examine how to improve older adults' everyday spatial behaviors, by giving them training on the efficient use of orientation strategies (such as maps and GPS), basic cognitive abilities (such as VSWM), and on metacognitive reflection of their wayfinding inclinations, for instance.…”

Section: Future Directions and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Orientation Experiences and Navigation Aid Use: A Self-Report Lifespan Study on the Role of Age and Visuospatial Factors

Muffato

Borella

Pazzaglia

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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Spatial orientation is essential for daily life, but it deteriorates with aging. The present study was aimed at investigating age changes across the adult lifespan in the self-reported use of navigation aids and everyday orientation experiences, as well as investigating to what extent these are related to visuospatial working memory (VSWM) and self-reported wayfinding inclinations. A sample of 456 people aged 25–84 years rated how much they use navigation aids (maps, GPS, verbal directions), how much they went out, and how much they reached or lost their way to unfamiliar destinations (in 2016). Then, they performed the jigsaw puzzle test (VSWM) and questionnaires on sense of direction, pleasure in exploring, and spatial anxiety. The results showed that increasing age is related to a lower tendency to go out, fewer experiences of finding one’s way and getting lost, a lower level of GPS use, and increased verbal directions use. After age changes were accounted for, VSWM was related to aid use and orientation experiences (except for losing one’s way), wayfinding inclinations (especially spatial anxiety) to using a map, and orientation experiences. Overall, other than age, VSWM and one’s wayfinding attitudes can play a role–albeit it a modest one–in spatial behaviors.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 78%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Use Of Navigation Aidsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Future Directions and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Orientation Experiences and Navigation Aid Use: A Self-Report Lifespan Study on the Role of Age and Visuospatial Factors

Muffato

Borella

Pazzaglia

et al. 2022

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Turn-by-turn directions drive navigators' attention away from environmental features and lead to divided attention between navigation-assistive devices and the traversed environments (Gardony et al, 2013(Gardony et al, , 2015. Guided by such navigation devices, navigators are thus not supported in the active cognitive investment of encoding environmental information such as landmarks, route directions, and spatial relations of landmarks in the environment into memory (Parush et al, 2007;McKinlay, 2016;Dahmani & Bohbot, 2020;Sugimoto et al, 2021). As a consequence, overreliance on navigation systems may be detrimental to users' spatial skills (Ishikawa, 2019;Ruginski et al, 2019).…”

Section: Landmarks and Navigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of landmark visualization in mobile maps on brain activity during navigation: A virtual reality study

Cheng

Wunderlich

Gramann

et al. 2022

Front. Virtual Real.

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The frequent use of GPS-based navigation assistance is found to negatively affect spatial learning. Displaying landmarks effectively while providing wayfinding instructions on such services could facilitate spatial learning because landmarks help navigators to structure and learn an environment by serving as cognitive anchors. However, simply adding landmarks on mobile maps may tax additional cognitive resources and thus adversely affect cognitive load in mobile map users during navigation. To address this potential issue, we set up the present study experimentally to investigate how the number of landmarks (i.e., 3 vs. 5 vs. 7 landmarks), displayed on a mobile map one at a time at intersections during turn-by-turn instructions, affects spatial learning, cognitive load, and visuospatial encoding during map consultation in a virtual urban environment. Spatial learning of the environment was measured using a landmark recognition test, a route direction test, and Judgements of Relative Directions (JRDs). Cognitive load and visuospatial encoding were assessed using electroencephalography (EEG) by analyzing power modulations in distinct frequency bands as well as peak amplitudes of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Behavioral results demonstrate that landmark and route learning improve when the number of landmarks shown on a mobile map increases from three to five, but that there is no further benefit in spatial learning when depicting seven landmarks. EEG analyses show that relative theta power at fronto-central leads and P3 amplitudes at parieto-occipital leads increase in the seven-landmark condition compared to the three- and five-landmark conditions, likely indicating an increase in cognitive load in the seven-landmark condition. Visuospatial encoding indicated by greater theta ERS and alpha ERD at occipital leads with a greater number of landmarks on mobile maps. We conclude that the number of landmarks visualized when following a route can support spatial learning during map-assisted navigation but with a potential boundary—visualizing landmarks on maps benefits users’ spatial learning only when the number of visualized landmarks shown does not exceed users’ cognitive capacity. These results shed more light on neuronal correlates underlying cognitive load and visuospatial encoding during spatial learning in map-assisted navigation. Our findings also contribute to the design of neuro-adaptive landmark visualization for mobile navigation aids that aim to adapt to users’ cognitive load to optimize their spatial learning in real time.

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Towards neuroadaptive navigation assistance to reduce spatial de-skilling

Fabrikant

2024

Cogn Process

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Maps have been invaluable navigation aids for millennia and thus have been critical for human survival. The increasing popularity of and high dependence on digital, location-aware assistive navigation technology, however, has been shown to divert our attention from the environment and to negatively influence innate spatial abilities. To mitigate this, neuroadaptive mobile geographic information displays (namGIDs) are proposed that respond in real-time to navigators’ cognitive task demands and wayfinder’s situated visuo-spatial attention needs. In doing so, namGIDs may not only help navigators maintain navigation efficiency but more importantly, also continuously scaffold spatial learning. To do this, the proposed navigation assistance must strike the appropriate balance between welcomed mobility efficiency gains while limiting human spatial deskilling. Leveraging neuroadaptive cartography, we can ensure to remain effective navigators, empowered to explore the world with confidence.

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Online mobile map effect: how smartphone map use impairs spatial memory

Cited by 16 publications

References 28 publications

Orientation Experiences and Navigation Aid Use: A Self-Report Lifespan Study on the Role of Age and Visuospatial Factors

Orientation Experiences and Navigation Aid Use: A Self-Report Lifespan Study on the Role of Age and Visuospatial Factors

The effect of landmark visualization in mobile maps on brain activity during navigation: A virtual reality study

Towards neuroadaptive navigation assistance to reduce spatial de-skilling

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