Digital maps increasingly replace paper maps because they are accessible, regularly updated, and customizable. Yet they often weaken spatial orientation skills and create technological dependency. One possible solution is supporting navigation without extra cognitive effort by designing maps that address spatially responsive brain cells. These cells are thought to be involved in the construction of an internal spatial representation. As animal studies have shown that the perception of environmental boundaries contributes to the stabilization of firing behavior, we examined boundary effects on path integration (PI) in screen-based and virtual reality (VR) settings. This allowed us to test whether the effect is robust across formats with different immersion and self-motion feedback. Participants completed PI tasks in a virtual arena while viewing a briefly displayed elevated line, wall, or no artificial boundary. It was expected that perceived boundaries would stabilize the activity of spatially responsive cells, such as grid cells. This is likely to contribute to a reduction in PI errors. Results showed a supportive tendency for the line condition, whereas the wall condition produced the highest errors. This pattern was comparable across both media. The findings suggest that the effect of spatial boundary cues depends on their design and perceptual properties.
Denise O’Meara, Julian Keil, C. Oster et al.· ISPRS International Journal...· 0 citations
Digital navigation systems facilitate goal-directed travel but reduce active engagement with the surrounding environment—a process critical for the formation of allocentric cognitive maps. Neuroscientific evidence reveals that spatial orientation relies on the coordinated activity of specialized spatially tuned neuronal populations, including place cells, head direction cells, grid cells, and border cells. This article introduces the specific properties of these spatially tuned cells, which encode central components of spatial information such as position, direction, distance, boundaries, and object relationships. Cell activities are continuously modulated by the perception of stable landmarks and environmental boundaries. This could form the basis for a “neurocartographic” approach that focuses on the systematic use of these cell activities to support spatial orientation. Enhancing the visual salience of landmarks and boundary structures, as well as integrating Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality(AR)-based components, may strengthen the metric representation of space—particularly grid cell–based coding. The overarching objective of this approach is to promote the development of allocentric and egocentric spatial representations during both real-world navigation and map-based wayfinding, thereby counteracting the decline in navigational abilities observed with the widespread use of digital turn-by-turn systems.
Frank Dickmann, Annika Korte, Denise O´Meara et al.· KN - Journal of Cartography...· 0 citations