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Homo Sapiens (“Us”): Strengths and Weaknesses
Published in Michael Hehenberger, Zhi Xia, Huanming Yang, Our Animal Connection, 2020
Michael Hehenberger, Zhi Xia, Huanming Yang
The ability to navigate is now known to depend on specialized neurons in the brain’s hippocampus area (see Fig. 4.5). Their detailed description was awarded by the 2014 Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology51 to John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser, and Edvard I. Moser. They received the award for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain. In 1971, John O’Keeffe found that a type of nerve cell in the brain’s hippocampus area was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room. Other nerve cells were activated when the rat was at other places. He concluded that these “place cells” formed a map of the room. In 2005, May-Britt and Edvard Moser discovered another key component of the brain’s positioning system, namely “grid cells” that generate a coordinate system and allow for precise positioning and pathfinding. Their subsequent research showed how, together, place and grid cells make it possible to determine position and to navigate.
Homo Sapiens (“Us”): Strengths and Weaknesses
Published in Michael Hehenberger, Zhi Xia, Our Animal Connection, 2019
The ability to navigate is now known to depend on specialized neurons in the brain’s hippocampus area (see Fig. 4.5). Their detailed description was awarded by the 2014 Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology51 to John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser, and Edvard I. Moser. They received the award for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain. In 1971, John O’Keeffe found that a type of nerve cell in the brain’s hippocampus area was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room. Other nerve cells were activated when the rat was at other places. He concluded that these “place cells” formed a map of the room. In 2005, May-Britt and Edvard Moser discovered another key component of the brain’s positioning system, namely “grid cells” that generate a coordinate system and allow for precise positioning and pathfinding. Their subsequent research showed how, together, place and grid cells make it possible to determine position and to navigate.
Spatial Orientation and Disorientation
Published in Anthony N. Nicholson, The Neurosciences and the Practice of Aviation Medicine, 2017
A more recent discovery is the presence of grid cells located in the entorhinal cortex (Hafting et al., 2005). These cells are so named because they show activity when an animal is at multiple locations within its environment. In addition, when the firing locations of an individual cell are mapped on to that environment, they form a regularly spaced hexagonal grid pattern (Figure 4.1b). This arrangement suggests the possibility that these cells act as some form of measurement system for spatial navigation. Grid cells within the entorhinal cortex are arranged in multiple layers, each with a different spatial resolution and orientation. It has been suggested that this arrangement might form the basis of a memory for location. There is now an extensive literature (reviewed in Moser et al., 2008) exploring the determinants of cell activity and the interaction between these various types of cell. Cells of different types coexist in certain nuclei. For example, the lateral mammillary nucleus contains both head velocity cells and head direction cells, and the entorhinal cortex contains place, grid and head direction cells.
Small screen-big information challenge for older adults: a study on visual momentum and gesture navigation
Published in Behaviour & Information Technology, 2023
A key to improving VM is to reduce the spatial memory burden of users. It would alleviate the problem of small screen-big information disorientation in older adults (Woods 1984; Hornbaek, Bederson, and Plaisant 2002). Research at the neurophysiological of spatial cognition has found that grid cells are the coordinate system within the brain. They store information related to spatial memory (Hafting et al. 2005). In the design practice of graphical user interfaces, Laubheimer (2020) also points out that distinct visual boundaries are key for users to establish spatial memory. The nature of the grid is well suited to act as a coordinate system. Therefore, this study introduces grids into the design of visualisation techniques to improve VM and reduce the spatial cognitive load of older adults.
How building layout properties influence pedestrian route choice and route recall
Published in Transportmetrica A: Transport Science, 2022
Yunhe Tong, Nikolai W. F. Bode
Previous research indicates that how pedestrians interpret route information from their own subjective perspective is essential for pedestrian route choice (Shatu, Yigitcanlar, and Bunker 2019). Cognitive maps, the mental representations of external environments constructed by pedestrians, can capture the cognitive factors that might affect pedestrian route choice. This concept is termed by Tolman who found evidence that rats possess a clue about specific objects and their spatial relation obtained from previous visiting experiences, and that hippocampal formation is involved in the establishment of such a cognitive map (Tolman 1948). They found that specific cells, such as grid cells (Moser et al. 2008) and border cells (Solstad et al. 2008), play a role in spatial information perception. Similar cells that provide environmental information have also been discovered in the human brain (Ekstrom et al. 2003). Five elements of cognitive maps are identified: paths, nodes, districts, edges and landmarks (Lynch et al. 1964). Paths refer to the shared corridors, edges are limiting or enclosing features, districts are larger spaces sharing some common characters, nodes are the intersections of major paths or places, and landmarks distinctive features that people use to reference and locate themselves.
A scientometric analysis and review of spatial cognition studies within the framework of neuroscience and architecture
Published in Architectural Science Review, 2021
The spatial cognition line of enquiry showed that there are a number of brain cells involved during navigation. They are called place, grid, border and head direction cells. They, and their roles in navigation, constitute the main research theme of Cluster 10. Navigation-related brain cells were first discovered in the rodent hippocampus, but further studies demonstrated that humans also have them. O’Keefe and Dostrovsky (1971) discovered place cells in rats which fire (become active) as a function of the spatial position of the animal. Place cells seem to be allocentric because a cell fires when the animal is in that place regardless of the way it is facing. Grid cells in the entorhinal cortex (a brain area which provides information to the hippocampus) fire in a regular hexagonal pattern on the floor of the environment in which the animal is located. Grid cells are thought to involve a distance-measuring process of the brain. Head direction cells in several parts of the brain fire on the basis of the facing direction. They create the sense of direction and inform the hippocampal system about it. Border cells in the entorhinal cortex fire at set distances from boundaries in the navigation environment. More than forty years of research on spatial cognition confirms that cognitive maps are neutrally instantiated by place, grid, head direction and border cells (Epstein et al. 2017).