Search results for "Spatial Navigation"

Experienced Migratory Bats Integrate the Sun's Position at Dusk for Navigation at Night.

2019

Summary From bats to whales, millions of mammals migrate every year. However, their navigation capacity for accomplishing long-distance movements remains remarkably understudied and lags behind by five decades compared to other animals [ 1 , 2 ]—partly because, unlike for other taxa, such as birds and sea turtles, no small-scale orientation assay has so far been developed. Yet recently, bats became a model to investigate which cues mammals use for long-range navigation, and, surprisingly for nocturnal animals, sunset cues, and particularly polarized-light cues, appear to be crucial for calibration of the magnetic-compass system in non-migratory bats [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. This does not appear to ho…

Impairment of Everyday Spatial Navigation Abilities in Mild Cognitive Impairment Is Weakly Associated with Reduced Grey Matter Volume in the Medial P…

2020

Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.

Path Following in Non-Visual Conditions.

2018

Path-following tasks have been investigated mostly under visual conditions, that is when subjects are able to see both the path and the tool, or limb, used for navigation. Moreover, only basic path shapes are usually adopted. In the present experiment, participants must rely exclusively on continuous, non-speech, and ecological auditory and vibrotactile cues to follow a path on a flat surface. Two different, asymmetric path shapes were tested. Participants navigated by moving their index finger over a surface sensing position and force. Results show that the different non-visual feedback modes did not affect the task's accuracy, yet they affected its speed, with vibrotactile feedback causin…

Enhanced Spatial Navigation Skills in Sequence-Space Synesthetes

2018

Contains fulltext : 219554.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) Individuals with sequence-space synesthesia (SSS) perceive sequences like months, days and numbers in certain spatial arrangements. Several cognitive benefits have been associated with SSS, such as enhanced mental rotation, more vivid visual imagery and an advantage in spatial processing. The current study aimed to further investigate these cognitive benefits, focusing on spatial navigation skills, to explore if their enhanced sensitivity to spatial relations is reflected in enhanced navigational performance. Synesthetes were distinguished from controls by means of a questionnaire, a consistency test and drawings. A virtu…

Moving through Life-Space Areas and Objectively Measured Physical Activity of Older People

2015

Objectives Physical activity–an important determinant of health and function in old age–may vary according to the life-space area reached. Our aim was to study how moving through greater life-space areas is associated with greater physical activity of community-dwelling older people. The association between objectively measured physical activity and life-space area reached on different days by the same individual was studied using one-week longitudinal data, to provide insight in causal relationships. Methods One-week surveillance of objectively assessed physical activity of community-dwelling 70–90-year-old people in central Finland from the “Life-space mobility in old age” cohort substudy…

Contrasting parental roles shape sex differences in poison frog space use but not navigational performance

2022

Sex differences in vertebrate spatial abilities are typically interpreted under the adaptive specialization hypothesis, which posits that male reproductive success is linked to larger home ranges and better navigational skills. The androgen spillover hypothesis counters that enhanced male spatial performance may be a byproduct of higher androgen levels. Animal groups that include species where females are expected to outperform males based on life-history traits are key for disentangling these hypotheses. We investigated the association between sex differences in reproductive strategies, spatial behavior, and androgen levels in three species of poison frogs. We tracked individuals in natura…

The relationship between navigation abilities and mental disorders: Poster

2021

This study examined the relationship between aspects of navigational ability and behavioral traits associated with various mental disorders. We propose that navigational ability may utilize the same brain circuitry that has dysfunction in certain mental disorders and may be a beneficial early marker for these disorders. This study was inspired by the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC), a framework outlined by NIMH to study the basic dimensions of functioning that span the range of behavior from normal to abnormal. For example, we hypothesized that spatial perspective taking, which is important for navigation, could be associated with social perspective taking in disorders such as autism spectr…

The relationship between navigation abilities and mental disorders: Oral presentation

2021

Spatial Cognition 2020/1: Book of abstracts : August 2-4, 2021, University of Latvia

2021

Spatial Cognition is concerned with the acquisition, development, representation, organization, and use of knowledge about spatial objects in real, virtual or hybrid environments and processed by human or artificial agents. Spatial Cognition includes research from different fields insofar as they are concerned with cognitive agents and space, such as cognitive and developmental psychology, linguistics, computer science, geography, cartography, philosophy, neuroscience, and education. Research issues in the field range from the investigation of human spatial cognition to mobile robot navigation, including topics such as wayfinding, spatial planning, spatial learning, internal and external re…