Spatial memory
[5] Short-term memory (STM) can be described as a system allowing one to temporarily store and manage information that is necessary to complete complex cognitive tasks.
[8][9] The most recent version of this model suggests that there are four subcomponents to WM: phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, the central executive, and the episodic buffer.
[9] In this respect, visual, spatial, and verbal information are thought to be organized by levels of representation rather than the type of store to which they belong.
[8] The researchers concluded with the explanation that the central executive employs cognitive strategies enabling participants to both encode and maintain mental representations during short-term memory tasks.
A cognitive map is "a mental model of objects' spatial configuration that permits navigation along optimal path between arbitrary pairs of points.
This parceled world idea is further supported by the finding that items that get recalled together are more likely than not to also be clustered within the same region of one's larger cognitive map.
Lack of experience in a locale, or simply sheer size, can disorient one's mental layout, especially in a large and unfamiliar place with many overwhelming stimuli.
[18] In the study, 40 participants used both a traditional desktop and a head-mounted display to view two environments, a medieval town, and an ornate palace, where they memorized two sets of 21 faces presented as 3D portraits.
The participants state that leveraging their innate vestibular and proprioceptive senses with the head-mounted display and mapping aspects of the environment relative to their body, elements that are absent with the desktop, was key to their success.
[12] An interesting study investigating taxi drivers' memory for streets in Helsinki, Finland, examined the role of prelearned spatial knowledge.
[12] This study compared experts to a control group to determine how this prelearned knowledge in their skill domain allows them to overcome the capacity limitations of STM and WM.
[12] However, the researchers found that it was in fact spatial information that the experts were chunking, allowing them to surpass the limitations of both visuo-spatial STM and WM.
[12] Certain species of paridae and corvidae (such as the black-capped chickadee and the scrub jay) are able to use spatial memory to remember where, when and what type of food they have cached.
[11] Although a general lack of consensus regarding this distinction has been noted in the literature,[10][21][22] there is a growing amount of evidence that the two components are separate and serve different functions.
[21] In practice, the two systems work together in some capacity but different tasks have been developed to highlight the unique abilities involved in either visual or spatial memory.
The spatial interference task required participants to follow, by touching the stimuli, an arrangement of small wooden pegs which were concealed behind a screen.
Due to the nature of task involving rats to swim, most researchers believe that habituation is required to decrease the stress levels of the animal.
[49] The dorsalcaudal medial entorhinal cortex (dMEC) contains a topographically organized map of the spatial environment made up of grid cells.
[52] Lesions to this region impair the use of distal but not proximal landmarks during navigation and produces a delay-dependent deficit in spatial memory that is proportional to the length of the delay.
These problems could possibly be the result of a disruption in the ability to access one's cognitive map, a mental representation of the surrounding environment or the inability to judge objects' location in relation to one's self.
[75] Developmental topographical disorientation (DTD) is diagnosed when patients have shown an inability to navigate even familiar surroundings since birth and show no apparent neurological causes for this deficiency such as lesioning or brain damage.
[76] Research with rats indicates that spatial memory may be adversely affected by neonatal damage to the hippocampus in a way that closely resembles schizophrenia.
Adult rats with NVHL show typical indicators of schizophrenia, such as hypersensitivity to psychostimulants, reduced social interactions and impaired prepulse inhibition, working memory and set-shifting.
GPS has become an essential tool in our daily lives, providing real-time information about our location and the directions we need to take to reach our destination.
[92] Since GPS use would help the patients with wayfinding, it would allow them to stay safe in public, reclaim their sense of self-sufficiency, and discourage "wandering".
In conclusion, GPS technology has revolutionized the way we navigate and explore our environment, but its impact on our spatial learning and memory is still a subject of debate.
While GPS use can help people navigate more efficiently, confidently, and aid populations who would otherwise be significantly hindered; its use may lead to a decline in spatial cognitive skills over time.
Creating spatial relationships between objects is an important part of solving word problems because mental operations and transformations are required.
One study demonstrated that the actual extent of reactivation during sleep correlated with the improvement in route retrieval and therefore memory performance the following day.
Similar results were confirmed by another study examining the impact of total sleep deprivation (TSD) on rats' spatial memory (Guan et al., 2004).
