Perhaps you have had the experience of getting step-by-step directions from someone or using your smartphone to find a place, and later, when trying to fnd your way a second time, you discover that you have no memory of the route you took, even if you had followed the route repeatedly with assistance in the past.
Today, I want to discuss some research that has been carried out over the past ten years that sheds light on this phenomenon - research about some interesting findings about the connection between our increasing reliance on aids to help us navigate (such as GPS) and our cognitive health.
Psychologists have known for some time that we create mental maps to make sense of our world. In the 1970s, scientists discovered that the site of this map-making ability is the hippocampus, an area deep inside the brain, in the temporal lobe. Within the hippocampus, differentiated cells allow us to orient ourselves in relation to landmarks and to adjust our position as we move through space - sort of our own internal GPS. The hippocampus plays a key role in spatial memory and navigation. These are among the frst abilities to deteriorate as we age, sometimes ending in dementia. So, you can see why understanding how it works is a top priority for researchers today. Spatial memory is involved in more than just remembering where things are.however. It plays a crucial role in memory overall because it allows us to reconstruct experiences and events that are connected in our minds to physical spaces.
Humans navigate in one of two ways. The first is the spatial or landmark strategy. This strategy relies on the hippocampus and involves building a mental map that uses landmarks, such as buildings, parks, trees, etc. The second method is the response strategy, which is more or less memorization. Using this strategy, knowledge emerges as the result of repeated trips along the same route. Most of you will have had the experience in which you take a familiar route and arrive at your destination with little memory of the journey. This strategy does not require the construction of a mental map. Scientists have shown that these two strategies use different parts of the brain.
Eleanor Maguire, a psychologist at University College London, became interested in the role of the hippocampus in navigation. She was particularly interested in the brains of people who use the frst strategy intensively. For study participants, she chose a very specifc population of landmark strategy users - London taxi drivers. London taxi drivers are famous for knowing the city's 250, 000 streets incredibly well. They study for three or four years to prepare for the very demanding test they have to take for a taxi license.As she suspected, the MRI images of the drivers'brains as they planned their routes showed a high level of activity in the hippocampus. She also found that this part of their brain was unusually large and, furthermore, that the more experience a driver had, the larger the hippocampus.These results strongly suggested that the constant creation of mental maps had affected the drivers' brains. However, Maguire could not be sure that the relationship was causal An alternative explanation was that people with a large hippocampus were more likely to pass the demanding exam and become drivers.
So, Maguire did a longitudinal follow-up study. She took MRI images of applicants for a taxi license before they began their studies for the test. All participants had hippocampi of relatively similar size at the start of the study. Four years later, Maguire studied these participants again. Some of the applicants had failed the test while others had passed and become drivers. The hippocampi of the second group -the ones who had become drivers - were much larger, and these participants also did much better on cognitive tests. So all this points to a causal relationship between the creation of mental maps and the increased size of the hippocampus.
Maguire's studies came at a time when digital devices with GPS were just emerging, As they became more popular, some researchers began to wonder whether the
increasing use of these devices might impair our ability tc create mental maps. In 2005, Gary Burnett at Nottingham University in England conducted a study in which half of the participants were given step-by-step instructions to their destinations, and the other half had to find their way using maps. When they were later asked to draw a map of the route they took, the drivers who had simply followed directions did much worse than those who had navigated on their own. These findings support the idea that the choice of navigation strategy impacts this type of memory.
McGill University Professor Veronique Bohbot also pursued this line of inquiry. In her study, she compared a group of participants who were accustomed to navigating with spatial landmark strategy with another group who relied on GPS for navigation. The participants in the frst group had more gray matter in their hippocampi and exhibited a higher level of activity in this part of the brain. Perhaps more important, this group also performed better on a cognitive test that often reveals the frst sign of dementia as a person ages.
As with Maguire's first study, it isn't possible to say definitively that this connection between GPS use and lower test performance is a causal one. Similarly, we cannot
yet say whether engaging in spatial navigation and the creation of mental maps can delay the effects of aging on cognition. More research is needed. Nevertheless, Professor Bohbot says that these results are strong enough to suggest that if we limit our reliance on GPS, we will strengthen our brain's navigational skills. give me the information I learned from the "lecture" on how the brain makes and uses mental maps. the information you learned from the "lecture" on how the brain makes and uses mental maps.You should explain the ideas of the recording in my own words. I am not good at English,Do not use academic words,just use the listening material's words to answer me.I will record it for a 2-minute explanation.Don be so much content,just brief and simple。