Human Spatial Navigation

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Human Spatial Navigation

Author: Arne D. Ekstrom
language: en
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Release Date: 2018-08-07
The first book to comprehensively explore the cognitive foundations of human spatial navigation Humans possess a range of navigation and orientation abilities, from the ordinary to the extraordinary. All of us must move from one location to the next, following habitual routes and avoiding getting lost. While there is more to learn about how the brain underlies our ability to navigate, neuroscience and psychology have begun to converge on some important answers. In Human Spatial Navigation, four leading expertstackle fundamental and unique issues to produce the first book-length investigation into this subject. Opening with the vivid story of Puluwat sailors who navigate in the open ocean with no mechanical aids, the authors begin by dissecting the behavioral basis of human spatial navigation. They then focus on its neural basis, describing neural recordings, brain imaging experiments, and patient studies. Recent advances give unprecedented insights into what is known about the cognitive map and the neural systems that facilitate navigation. The authors discuss how aging and diseases can impede navigation, and they introduce cutting-edge network models that show how the brain can act as a highly integrated system underlying spatial navigation. Throughout, the authors touch on fascinating examples of able navigators, from the Inuit of northern Canada to London taxi drivers, and they provide a critical lens into previous navigation research, which has primarily focused on other species, such as rodents. An ideal book for students and researchers seeking an accessible introduction to this important topic, Human Spatial Navigation offers a rich look into spatial memory and the neuroscientific foundations for how we make our way in the world.
Human Spatial Cognition and Experience

This book offers an introduction to human spatial cognition and behaviour and is designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students who are interested in the study of maps in the head and the psychology of space. We live in space, and interact and make decisions based on our feelings about spaces all the time. Have you ever wondered how some people navigate perfectly using maps in their heads while other people get lost even with a physical map? How do we know where we are? This book will clarify that our knowledge, feelings, and behaviours emerge as a consequence of our interacting with the surrounding space, and show that interaction with the surrounding space has significant consequences on our perception and cognition. Recognised in recent years as one of the most important and emerging fields of research, spatial cognition looks at how people deal with spaces and spatial information, and their behaviour within that space. This book introduces why and how space, and cognition of space, relate to our lives, and introduces the reader to why and how space matters. It is no coincidence that the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for research into a positioning system in the brain or inner GPS - a study using spatial cognition. This is the first book aimed at graduate and advanced undergraduate students pursuing this fascinating area of research. The content introduces the reader to the field of spatial cognition and behaviour with a series of chapters covering cognitive mapping, geospatial information and environmental aesthetics. The book also introduces theoretical, empirical and practical issues involved in the study of spatial cognition.
The Cambridge Handbook of Visuospatial Thinking

Author: Priti Shah
language: en
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release Date: 2005-07-25
The ability to navigate across town, comprehend an animated display of the functioning of the human heart, view complex multivariate data on a company's website, or to read an architectural blueprint and form a three-dimensional mental picture of a house are all tasks involving visuospatial thinking. The field of visuospatial thinking is a relatively diverse interdisciplinary research enterprise. An understanding of visuospatial thinking, and in particular, how people represent and process visual and spatial information, is relevant not only to cognitive psychology but also education, geography, architecture, medicine, design computer science/artificial intelligence, semiotics and animal cognition. The goal of this book, first published in 2005, is to present a broad overview of research on visuospatial thinking that can be used by researchers as well as students interested in this topic in both basic research and applied/naturalistic contexts.