Habitual use of GPS negatively impacts spatial memory during self-guided navigation.

ABSTRACT: Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation devices and applications have become ubiquitous over the last decade. However, it is unclear whether using GPS affects our own internal navigation system, or spatial memory, which critically relies on the hippocampus. We assessed the lifetime GPS experience of 50 regular drivers as well as various facets of spatial memory, including spatial memory strategy use, cognitive mapping, and landmark encoding using virtual navigation tasks. We first present cross-sectional results that show that people with greater lifetime GPS experience have worse spatial memory during self-guided navigation, i.e. when they are required to navigate without GPS. In a follow-up session, 13 participants were retested three years after initial testing. Although the longitud

SUBMITTER: Dahmani L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7156656 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature