Scientists in both fields work together to figure out what role spatial cognition plays in the brain as well as to determine the surrounding neurobiological infrastructure.
In this context the implementation of virtual reality becomes more and more widespread among researchers, since it offers the opportunity to confront participants with unknown environments in a highly controlled manner.
[2] This knowledge can be built from various sources; from a tightly coordinated vision and locomotion (movement), but also from map symbols, verbal descriptions, and computer-based pointing systems.
[12] Geographical space is the last level because it is so large that it can not be explored through movement alone and can only be fully understood through cartographic representations which can illustrate an entire continent on a map.
[11] In order to build spatial knowledge, people construct a cognitive reality in which they compute their environment based on a reference point.
Whilst spatial information can be stored into these different frames, they already seem to develop together in early stages of childhood[16] and appear to be necessarily used in combination in order to solve everyday life tasks.
Within an egocentric reference frame, spatial information is encoded in terms of relations to the physical body of a navigator, whereas the allocentric reference frame defines relations of objects among each other, that is independent of the physical body of an "observer" and thus in a more absolute way, which takes metrical conditions and general alignments like cardinal directions into account.
When compared to their true measurements on a curved surface of the globe, there is a misconception of shape, size, distance, or direction between geographical landmarks.
In a recent study, König et aliae[38] provided further evidence by letting participants learn the positions of streets and houses from an interactive map.
That confirms the view of mixed strategies, in this case that spatial information of different objects is coded in distinct ways within the same task.
Moreover, the orientation and location of objects like houses seems to be primarily learned in an action-oriented way, which is also in line with an enactive framework for human cognition.
In a study of two congeneric rodent species, sex differences in hippocampal size were predicted by sex-specific patterns of spatial cognition.
Hippocampal size is known to correlate positively with maze performance in laboratory mouse strains and with selective pressure for spatial memory among passerine bird species.
One study aimed to determine whether male cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis; cephalopod mollusc) range over a larger area than females and whether this difference is associated with a cognitive dimorphism in orientation abilities.
[45] It involves processes such as representation, planning and decision which help to avoid obstacles, to stay on course or to regulate pace when approaching particular objects.
[13] Also Barbara Tversky systematized the space, but this time taking into consideration the three dimensions that correspond to the axes of the human body and its extensions: above/below, front/back and left/right.
This navigation strategy relies more on a mental, spatial map than visible cues, giving it an advantage in unknown areas but a flexibility to be used in smaller environments as well.
This reliance on more local and well-known stimuli for finding their way makes it difficult to apply in new locations, but is instead most effective in smaller, familiar environments.
Egocentric navigation causes high levels of activation in the right parietal lobe and prefrontal regions of the brain that are involved in visuospatial processing.
[48] Franz and Mallot proposed a navigation hierarchy in Robotics and Autonomous Systems 30 (2006):[50] There are two types of human wayfinding: aided and unaided.
[13] Aided wayfinding requires a person to use various types of media, such as maps, GPS, directional signage, etc., in their navigation process which generally involves low spatial reasoning and is less cognitively demanding.
In the spatial cognition domain, such factors can be: Experimental, correlational and case study approaches are used to find patterns in individual differences.
Correlations approach is based on a modality to understand individual differences in navigation and wayfinding abilities to compare groups or examining the relation between variables at the continuous level.
The structural equation model showed that spatial sequential memory serves as a mediator in the relationship between the visuospatial ability factor and environmental knowledge[60] Further, Hegarthy et al., (2006) asked participants to learn a path in a real, virtual, and videotaped environment.
Men show more confidence during navigation in comparison to women and in the final environment representation accuracy even the gender difference can be attenuated by some factors (as outcome variables, feedback, familiarity).
Therefore, both males and females involve the use of visuospatial individual factors, abilities and inclinations, that with different patterns of relations influence navigation and wayfinding performance.
Concerning wayfinding attitudes, generally self-reported ones, evidence suggests that they tend to be quite stable across the lifespan, such as sense of direction,[72] with some changes such as the light increase of spatial anxiety.
[68] Biological factors involved in the decline is the decreased activity of the hippocampus, the parahippocampal gyrus, and the retrosplenial cortex, resulting in difficulties in acquiring new spatial knowledge and applying them.
[75] Indeed studies with samples of older adults showed that despite the decline of spatial abilities (small-scale), the latter still have a functional role in environment learning.
[76][77] Other studies showed the positive role of wayfinding attitudes, such as pleasure in exploring places, in maintaining spatial learning accuracy.