Improved Navigation Performance Through Memory Triggering Maps: A Neurocartographic Approach

Abstract

When using navigation devices the "cognitive map" created in the user's mind is much more fragmented, incomplete and inaccurate, compared to the mental model of space created when reading a conventional printed map. As users become more dependent on digital devices that reduce orientation skills, there is an urgent need to develop more efficient navigation systems that promote orientation skills. This paper proposes to consider brain processes for creating more efficient maps that use a network of optimally located cardinal lines and landmarks organized to support and stabilize the neurocognitive structures in the brain that promote spatial orientation. This new approach combines neurocognitive insights with classical research on the efficiency of cartographic visualizations. Recent neuroscientific findings show that spatially tuned neurons could be linked to navigation processes. In particular, the activity of grid cells, which appear to be used to process metric information about space, can be influenced by environmental stimuli such as walls or boundaries. Grid cell activity could be used to create a new framework for map-based interfaces that primarily considers the brain structures associated with the encoding and retrieval of spatial information. The new framework proposed in this paper suggests to arrange map symbols in a specific way that the map design helps to stabilize grid cell firing in the brain and by this improve spatial orientation and navigational performance. Spatially oriented cells are active in humans not only when moving in space, but also when imagining moving through an area-such as when reading a map. It seems likely that the activity of grid cells can be stabilized simply by map symbols that are perceived when reading a map.

Keywords: Cognitive maps; Grid cells; Navigation performance; Neurocartography; Spatial memory.

Fig. 1

In a topographic map, grid geometry (black lines) apparently influences eye movements of a participant (fixations represented as green, yellow and red dots as the number increases) that focus on an object (red circle) during an object location encoding (Dickmann et al. 2015)

Fig. 2

a Geometric pattern of grid cell firing fields (here: grid cell example of a rat); red dots mark the firing positions of a grid cell of a rat moving around in a box; the rat tracks shown in black (since the rat ran through almost the entire area (cage) during the electrophysiological measurement with revisited locations where grid cells fire, the area appears almost completely black); grid cell firing fields exhibiting a characteristic sixfold rotational symmetry (Bonnevie et al. ; with permission, license number 5730791287020); grid cell properties: spacing, phase ( x₀,y₀), and orientation (α) (according to Derdikman and Moser 2014) (Bonnevie et al. ; Moser et al. 2014); b assumed sketch of grid cell firing fields (activated in the brain) when moving through a grassy environment

Fig. 3

Potential advantages of six-fold over four-fold grid cell firing fields. The hexagonal pattern enables a higher directional resolution as six directions (3 axes) are available instead of only four (2 axes). With the hexagonal arrangement, a higher, more efficient packing density (few gaps) can be achieved to cover the surrounding area

Fig. 4

Assumed influence of cartographic cues on grid cell activity and the formation of a spatial mental representation (simplified according to Winter and Taube ; extended)

Fig. 5

Conceptual approach to trigger memory performance: using map elements such as represented cardinal axes to stabilize grid cell firing in the brain (cell firing image, Bonnevie et al. ; map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL). Retrieved from www.openstreetmap.org)

Fig. 6

Visualizing a cardinal axis of the environment as a superordinated reference presumably maintains the alignment of grid cell firing fields (cf. Navarro Schroeder et al. ; Hafting et al. 2005), thus stabilizing the grid cell firing fields and supporting navigation (building spatial mental representation; map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL). Retrieved from www.openstreetmap.org)

Fig. 7

Moving along a hexagonal axis in a 3D environment (or even imagined moving) when observing navigation system displays or reading maps possibly supports spatial memory performance; object locations on a map (white circles) aligned to hexadirectional axes and nodes of grid cell firing fields (here represented by red bands and spheres) are probably better learned. (Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed under the Open Database License (ODbL). Retrieved from www.openstreetmap.org)