The impact of cartographic cues on neural representations of space

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Using an innovative interdisciplinary research approach that integrates cartography and cognitive neuroscience, we strive to obtain new and fundamental insights into how humans process information from maps and how the efficiency of maps and map-based interfaces to improve spatial navigation can be optimized. Maps provide information about orientation, i.e. object positions (landmarks), distances, and angles between landmarks. To date, we still lack a systematic understanding on a cognitive and neuroscientific level of how such cartographic components contribute to generating spatial skills. The aim of the interdisciplinary project is to clarify how brain cells and networks that constitute a “spatial map” in the human medial temporal lobe are stabilized by cartographic cues of real maps. Neuroscientific evidence about navigationally relevant cell types may provide a novel conceptual and empirical framework for a fundamental understanding of map-based information processing. We hypothesize that revealing the mechanisms of how spatially responsive cells in the human brain (and in particular, grid cells) react to cartographic cues will enable systematic improvements of map designs. Cartographic cues are thus key to both understanding and influencing grid cell activities, which may in turn improve navigation performance when using maps. Highlighting specific map elements and inserting additional graphic structures in a way that matches the properties of grid cells may align grid cell firing in a controlled manner. In the project, we will conduct a series of behavioral and fMRI experiments in order to systematically examine the effects of various different cartographic cues on the firing patterns of grid cells and navigational performance. We hypothesize that different geometrical symmetries may serve distinct functions for spatial information processing: While orthogonal lines and borders may provide directional information, the repetitive triangular tiling provided by grid cell axes enables extracting distance information. This project thus aims for the first transfer of neuroscientific findings about grid cells to a direct practical application.