NAVIGATION STRATEGIES

- Direction based strategy involves a series of landmarks and steps. This is like an automatic navigation strategy that kicks-in when you travel between a familiar route. The habit forming part of the brain kicks-in during this phase.

- Spatial based strategy involves a gradual creation of a spatial map inside your brain. On exploration of an area, one can make sense of how the streets and landmarks fit together. Eventually, it enables you to navigate between two points even if you haven’t taken that particular route previously.

THE NEUROSCIENCE

A network of cells lodged deep within the brain, specifically in the hippocampus region, work together to assemble an internal mental map of our environment which enables us to find our way seamlessly between places. Studies done on rats indicate that there are three types of cells that enable navigation - head-direction cells, place cells and grid cells.

- Head direction cells track the orientation of the head

- Place cells bind the sensory cues and specific locations

- Grid cells bind a map together that signals direction and distance relationships between places.

Similar findings⇲ around the presence of grid cells in the Entorhinal cortex in the medial temporal lobe of the human brain have been published.- Head direction cells track the orientation of the head

References: Grid Cells: ‘Crystals of the Brain⇲

ESSENTIALS OF USING A MAP

For a map to work there are three key elements - Direction, Distance, Symbols and Determining your Location. [...edit pending...]

SPATIAL LEARNING MODEL

Siegel & White (1975) distingushed three types of knowledge involved forming and using cognitive maps, viz Landmark knowledge, route knowledge, and survey knowledge.

- Landmark knowledge is information about salient features that identify a specific geographic location.

- Route knowledge is information about specific pathways for moving from one location to another. Route knowledge is to some extent sequence knowledge.

- Survey knowledge involves understanding the configuration of the landmarks and their relative location with respect to one another.

References:

The Development of Spatial Representations of Large-Scale Environments⇲

Maps in the Head and Maps in the Hand ⇲