( May 7, 2021; Scientific American )
Exploration and spatial navigation provide a form of "mental exercise" that strengthens human memory and may even protect against age-related memory decline. Thus, it may be a concern that increasing prevalence of GPS navigation systems is reducing the amount of time that people spend engaged in both activities. A new application aims to reverse that trend.
In recent experiments, available in our publication in Scientific Reports (an open-access journal by the publisher of Nature), we show that this type of sensory navigation through audio beacons outperforms turn-by-turn navigation in the creation of mental maps.
We believe these results, at least in part, derive from people taking a more active role in their navigation. They explore more while using auditory beacons, and can engage with the environment, both of which support allocentric navigation and the construction of mental maps.
We invite the reader to try such auditory beacon experience by trying the Soundscape app on their mobile phone. The Soundscape team originally designed the app as an experimental tool to enable blind and low vision populations with a potentially safer, more robust and accessible navigation than turn-by-turn options; to date, it has enabled over 500,000 walks in seven countries.
Read the rest from Scientific American: How GPS Weakens Memory—and What We Can Do about It
I often wonder how those explorers, such as Christopher Columbus, Captain James Cook or Marco Polo managed to find their way around the world through uncharted waters, using nothing more than a sextant, compass, a chip log to determine latitude and longitude. How early cartographers produced such accurate charts that some were used into the early 20th Century? They accomplished it without the aid of GPS or satellite navigation. They did it by using nothing but intelligence, mathematical skills, experience, learning by doing, and an iron-bound courage and will.
However, I am not opposing GPS. If you don’t know a route, use a GPS. If you travel that route constantly you’ll eventually remember the route yourself, which means you will be less depended on GPS. For routes not traveled frequently, a GPS will still expose you to new learning opportunities. Such as back roads, state routes, highways, interstates, or even turnpikes, as well as where they can take you. A GPS is no different from an atlas, a GPS simply automates the work for you.
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You are right, the Boat Captains in ancient times were guided by the compass but at night they let themselves be carried away by the stars, we human beings are special we learned to survive the high risk that the mere fact of being alive entails.
Every day technology pushes us to be more lazy since we can have all the comfort at our fingertips, technology makes our life easier.
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Thank you for responding! I agree that the early navigators were pretty amazing. I have often wondered how I would have fared on such a voyage. Not well, I think.
The things that people can accomplish with modern technology, like GPS, are also pretty amazing, though.
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Every day we are on the rise in terms of technology and this type of thing, we are approaching a very extraordinary era but not everything is good. science is not only used for the good .. they also use it for the bad. Many years ago through the movies it was already prophesied what would happen in terms of technology. I think we only need to see highways and cars flying through it .. :)
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Thank you for your comment! I agree that technology brings good and bad results. On net, I think that the good usually outweighs the bad, but there are no guarantees.
I've been ready for flying cars for a couple of decades! ;-)
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Since I was little I saw the supersonic, a futuristic comic where cars flew and later, since I am an adult and I like the mystery of the universe, technological advances. I wonder if cars will fly nowadays like we would use the parking brake or the emergency brake if a flying cat crossed us in front of our car. Or a more serious question, how we will stop if another car crosses our path.
Death would be inevitable depending on how high we are flying, although I think it will open a height limit when flying cars are a fact.
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I imagine driving a flying car, I'm not good at driving roads on the ground, lol ... I had a lot of fun watching an animated series called the super sonics ... a lot of what was seen in that series of the 80_90 were prophecies of what we already see.
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Our minds have evolved to measures that pass the years although it seems a little credible in the last 100 years the human being has evolved in the technological, scientific, astrophysical field, etc ... than in millions of years ago.
Previously he asked me this question because the human being did not evolve technologically, if we have the power to do so.
The answer to my question was the church, believe it or not, the church in ancient times did not like the innovative so to speak if you experimented with chemicals to make medicine they classified you as a witch or a sorcerer and you were executed as a heretic, the fear of church at that time and immense.
Currently as the world population has grown the church lost power as the years passed, and more futuristic visionaries came out to change the world.
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This GPS for the visually impaired works 100% because a small error in GPS calculations could cost the life of the user who uses it.
On the other hand, it is good to know that science and technology also focus on disabled people, not just trying to conquer Mars or another planet.
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Thanks for the reply! You raise a good point. I was thinking about it in the context of a memory aid, but you're right. In its original use for the visually impaired, there is no margin for error at all.
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Hello @remlaps-time, how are you?
Technological progress does not stand still. And I find such on-site orientation programs very useful, especially for blind and hard-of-hearing people.
These people need to be full-fledged members of society and of course they need such useful programs as Soundscape.
I can say about myself that I constantly make my brain work and train my memory. I almost write nothing down in a notebook, forcing myself to memorize it. I know my way around pretty well.
I know that I only need to walk on an unfamiliar road once and the second time I will remember it and pass without error.
Of course, if you come to an enormous city, such as Casablanca in Morocco, you can get lost easily, and then GPS programs will definitely help us.
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Hi, thanks for the reply! I agree, there's a good use for most technologies, and from what I read in this article, your habit of exercising your memory is probably good for your long term mental agility.
I'm not sure if I totally understood it, but it seems to me that soundscape is useful for walking, but probably not driving or biking.
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