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Satellite Navigation 'Switches Off' Parts of Brain Used For Navigation, Study Finds (scientificamerican.com)
A new study published today in the journal Nature Communications reveals some of the drawbacks of using satellite navigation (SatNav) technology. After scanning the brains of 24 volunteers as they explored a simulation through the streets of London's Soho district, researchers from the University of London found that listening to a satellite navigation's instructions "switches off" activity in parts of the brain used for navigation. Scientific American reports: The researchers found that a brain structure called the hippocampus, which is involved in both memory and spatial navigation, appears to encode two different maps of the environment: One tracks the distance to the final destination as the crow flies and is encoded by the frontal region of the hippocampus, the other tracks the "true path" to the goal and is encoded by its rear region. During the navigation tasks, the hippocampus acts like a flexible guidance system, flipping between these two maps according to changing demands. Activity in the hippocampal rear region acts like a homing signal, increasing as the goal gets closer. Analysis of the brain-scanning data revealed activity in the rear right of the hippocampus increased whenever the participants entered a new street while navigating. It also varied with the number of new path options available. The more alternatives there were, the greater the brain activity. The researchers also found that activity in the front of the hippocampus was associated with a property called centrality, defined by the proximity of each new street to the center of the network. Further, they observed activity in the participants' prefrontal cortices when they were forced to make a detour and had to replan their route -- and this, too, increased in relation to the number of options available. Intriguingly, when participants followed SatNav instructions, however, brain activity in these regions "switched off." Together, the new findings suggest the rear portion of the hippocampus reactivates spatial memories of possible navigation paths, with more available paths evoking more activity, and that the prefrontal cortex may contribute to path-planning by searching though different route options and selecting the best one.
Two of my friends run a courier company and I have found that most of their drivers actually cannot understand how to use a map. When talking to them I tend to use map related references but today, they just listen to their satnavs and cannot understand how maps work. They have trouble knowing where they are in real terms although they can tell you generally by using the satnav.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I have noticed this behavior myself, and I used the same phrase, that my brain essentially shuts off when the computerized directions are being given.
What's weird though, is that the same thing doesn't seem to happen if I have an actual person giving me directions. If I listen to the computer, I can't remember shit. If a passenger looks at the map and does essentially the same function, I can remember everything fine and well. I wonder what the difference is between the two that results in such a different neurological outcome.
I prefer to have the map on the screen with a north-up orientation no matter which way I'm travelling. I find it helps me keep my bearings and learn routes rather than surrender to the machine's step-by-step instructrions.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
I started out my career as a field service tech doing consulting work all over town. "Town," was a metro area of approximately 900 square miles. The city has a grid system with numbered streets running one direction and named streets running the other, and the numbered streets corresponded with the hundreds-digit of street address numbers on the named streets. If a business had the address 7501 W. Broadway, that meant it was on the South side of Broadway, just West of 75th Avenue.
It was a little bit harder for addresses on numbered streets, but every 800 address numbers is another mile, so if one knows where the initial origin road is and knows the names of all the one-mile major roads, one can figure out how far north or south an address is and know which major roads it is between.
It is also a little harder for the minor neighborhood streets, but if one asked someone at the destination which major named streets one's street was on, it was still easy to find.
There really isn't any reason to use navigation in this city if you live here, it's easy to navigate on your own and without the electronic distraction.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Scientists determined that those people who made use of machine washing rather than hand washing had diminished hand strength and neurological motor communication necessary for fine motor control. Seamstresses who bought thread rather than using the spinning jenny were similarly impaired. But worst off were teamsters who used the internal combustion trucks rather than teams of horses and used forklifts and other mechanical devices rather than loading their vehicles by hand. Their overall body strength was much reduced.
Bruce Perens.
If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.
There are plenty of problems left in this world to apply unused brain tissue to. . . Freeing up brain matter to be applied to new problems is how we progress as a species.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Since our brains have to multitask when driving, perhaps we simply drop the redundant task?
Perhaps, if you have a passenger sitting there with a map, you don't fully trust them?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
indeed. use it or lossit but if its not really neccissary does it matter. theres all kinds of things i do not know how to do and do not need and a lot of things that i allow others or tools to do.
Computers is making us stupids.
You don't trust the person, the SatNav is there to guide you through missed turns, traffic jams ahead, and generally is a superior navigator to anyone you've ever had in the passenger seat reading a map, because the SatNav has access to more and better information.
I prefer to have the map on the screen with a north-up orientation no matter which way I'm travelling. I find it helps me keep my bearings and learn routes rather than surrender to the machine's step-by-step instructrions.
That's one way to do it, I guess. Personally, I just occasionally glance at the direction information on the electronic compass in my car (i.e. the compass direction that I am heading). For me, though, the biggest revelation was when I looked up how the US does route numbering. Routes that end in odd numbers are North South routes and routes that end in even numbers are East-West routes. It doesn't help much on side roads but once on major roads it helps you get close.
Perhaps handwriting vs typewriting is a better choice for that. You lose the ability to write if you switch to typewriters.
I can barely write legible all caps at this point, but typing is second nature.
I'm the same. When I'm out riding on my bile, I just go a hundred or so miles in no particular pattern, when I use the gps on for the return, I watch the map.
I can still re-create my memorable rides without sat nav. But if I had to describe where the blueberry farm in Indiana is that I ride to, listening to me telling you that turning left at the funny farm house, going to the long drive past another farm, watch for the dukes of hazard bridge, cross that and follow the signs won't help you.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Oh no, as GP stated I noticed the same thing and now try not to ever use map assists. Emergency issues are different in my opinion.
I happened to move to a new State 5/6 years ago. I kept using Nav and could not find crap even after I had been there one or two times. In the past, I could get back to a place I found once using maps, including other States and Cities. I read a similar report to this and pretty quickly started using the computer to get the map and make the route, but no assist in when driving. What a huge difference it made in a few months time.
I think the early reports of this were poo-pooed by techies as conspiracy theory nonsense, accusing people of reporting the experiences as tin foil hatters.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Makes me wonder what happens if you have a passenger using the SatNav in a way that the driver can't eavesdrop.
Hippocampus != hypothalamus youo know? ROFL'd It made my night shift more pleasant
What Socrates stated in a better translation is that there is no way to teach Philosophy with a book. Philosophy is taught through interrogation of concepts and ideas. (Cambridge Texts:Linguistic/Historical)
Which is of course what we call "The Socratic Method". Most people are not taught the method and don't bother to read the method even though there are plenty of books. Socrates was more often correct than not.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Its because we always verify information from people 'are they lying or wrong'. But totally trust the computer. It has no motive to lie.
Frightening.
I doubt if I am unique. I'm pretty good using old print maps. I think it is intuitive and easy. Your view of the map is as-if your are floating in the sky looking down on the map, and all you have to do is find out where you are, and North is up. I also tend to know where North is.
I'm also aware that an annoying, to me, large part of the population cannot use or read traditional maps. The non-map readers never got it. Maybe map reading should have been taught is school. I also find it annoying that so many people draw a dumb blank look when I tell them, "Get off the Freeway and head North. What do you mean you don't know where North is? Okay, do you know where the sun rises and sets..."
Currently, old style maps are in danger of being killed off by Google Maps, and other internet smartphone app maps.
Google maps clog my computer with ads, somehow North-South-East-West in "there," but hidden in favor of street directions. They assume that you are looking at a map to find out a list of directions to go from one address to another address.
Hey, give me a traditional map, I take a mental snapshot, and when I get nearby look at zoomable closeup--(and why does north move when I rotate the smartphone?!?) and I've got it.
So much for the Cartesian Grid.
Jump to 6:30 on this for Jackie Burkhart navigational methods, lasts less than a minute. I think this is the mentality of internet maps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxnPxKsw9TM
Seriously, I have the navigational instincts of a dead clam. I get lost in my house. Satellite navigation made life livable. I used to travel with a Rand McNally road atlas and a yellow pages. God bless GPS.
Its because we always verify information from people 'are they lying or wrong'. But totally trust the computer. It has no motive to lie.
I can see you're not using Windows 10.
big map books of the local area are not that easy to use in the car and what if you need 2-3 of them cover the drivers zone?
Nope. That's exactly the thing. We trust the computer and will blindly follow it over a cliff. The passenger, being human, is just as fallible as the driver, so we don't trust it. The computer will NEVER forget to tell you about a turn; the passenger most definitely can (and will.)
In another earth-shattering revelation, they found that driving a car deactivates some of the muscles used for walking. It's as if technology somehow allows us to use our mental and physical resources on other things...
They should test if this also happens with persons. Maybe is an evolutionary behavior. For instance, a nomad group, leaded by a pathfinder can benefit from this behavior. The pathfinder only focuses on "directions" while the followers can focus on the surroundings, dangers, etc.
Children who start using touchscreen displays at a young age, and who are engaged with those screens almost exclusively to more traditional toys, are starting school unable to hold pencils and perform important dexterity tasks. I imagine some people think, "That is good, we don't need handwriting anyway!" If all these kids know how to do is point, they will lack the skills to use basic hand tools, use scissors, type on a keyboard. Get ready for the disaster.
big map books of the local area are not that easy to use in the car and what if you need 2-3 of them cover the drivers zone?
Well, we had three of those guidebooks (Thomas Bros) and we looked at them when not actively driving. Basically there was a planning stage where we created a mental map, it was enough or it was supplemented by notes (street names, distances, turns, etc.). Then once we had a plan we executed the plan. It really was not much trouble, two or three minutes up front before you started driving.
I confess that my guides are 10+ years old and move from trunk of old car to trunk of new car unused. Off in the wilds, there I moderate the wonders of handheld wireless computing. Drop GPS pins where we park and where we set up a campsite but navigate with printed maps and mechanical compasses, brushing up on that perishable skill, leaving the phone/gps in a waterproof bag turned off for backup.
Isn't this obvious? It's what we want of technology: do the grunt work so we don't have to. I wanna be hummin' to my fav tunes in the car, not watching for turning landmarks.
Brains are metabolically quite expensive. Therefore, evolution has designed brains to be lazy and kick into cruse control when it can to conserve energy.
Table-ized A.I.
Anyone who has been navigated by gps system though knows they make mistakes all the time. from failing to be sufficiently clear, to directing you to make a left turn across a busy 9 lane highway, to sending you down a side-street with speedbumps instead of the main street one block over, to telling you to turn left at 3pm at an intersection that is only legal to turn left at after 6:30pm... to pulling a u-turn on a divided highway...etc etc.
I don't dispute you though... because people DO seem to turn their brains off, but it makes no sense because we KNOW the computer can screw up too and will.
>When I'm out riding on my bile,
What a way to go!
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Some relevant adages:
"Fore-warned is fore-armed." --things don't have to get worse.
"Too much of any good thing is always a bad thing." --the essence of how tech can make things worse.
"Use it or lose it!" --your brain, that is....
Because it's click-bait. It really is fake news.
I can't help thinking of the side splitting entertainment value that could be associated with navigation devices. Imagine for example shuffling around the sound files so that left is fight and 300 metres is 100 metres. Simple hack really. Of course you would also need access to their phone and camera to observe your work but the lulz man, think of the lolly lol lols.
The consequences this article is suggesting are a little unsurprising. Apart from people give up their ability to think critically and reason I wonder what else we are losing by placing so much dependence on these devices.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
your not using it so why would it activate that part of the brain Â\_(ãf)_/Â
My favorite GPS screwup was one where we were driving south on an overpass, and the gps system told us to turn left to get onto the E/W route that the overpass was taking us on top of. Of course, since we were in the middle of a bridge, this was impossible. What we actually had to do was travel to the other side of the overpass, and then navigate back onto east-running lower route. There were no left turns involved. The driver was thoroughly pissed off with the system, ranting almost for the entire rest of the trip at the rest of us about how he was going to file a complaint with the company that supplied him with it, but I just found the whole thing hilarious. In retrospect now, though, I have just considered that the fact that I was laughing about it at the time may have just been making him angrier, which led to the 15 minute or so tirade.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Those aren't errors in the GPS, but the data it's working with. If it doesn't know about a road, it won't tell you drive down it. If it doesn't know about time restrictions, or construction, or accidents, etc., etc. If we're talking about Waze, then I to have say that's not "GPS"; it's more of a "well, no one else is driving here, so go here!" system.
We validate what the GPS is telling us to do, but we don't ignore it's instructions and plan our own path. If one can't turn left, they pass the turn and wait for the GPS to figure things out. If you can't get in the correct lane in time, again, no panic, just keep driving until the GPS recalculates.
My favorite was the old Lexus GPS. It knows there are roads, and draws lines on the screen, but "has no data" on them so will not navigate over them. (and fills the screen with endless warnings so you can't see any of the little grey lines)
"Switches off parts of Brain" is just a very dramatic way of saying "You won't remember the route".
"Oooo, I better read the article, lest I become permanently retarded next time I use a GPS!"
...reading maps while driving / biking is asinine. Before satnav I used to plot a route to a new destination using a map,. and distill that to a single 3x5" (approx) piece of paper (a crib) I'd tape to the steering wheel hub or handle bars. Worked fine, but wouldn't adapt to real-time changes.
If you ask me, GPS satnav is the best thing to come out of the Cold War. It's still fallible... but it sure beats spending 15 minutes at a stop-n'-rob parking lot with a map unfolded over the car's hood plotting your next move.. can of Coke in one hand and lit marlboro in the other.. yeah.. I just god a good memory of a trip across the SE USA in a 1984 Rx-7, reading paper maps in parking lots =o)
But... I agree.. map-reading is a skill that must be preserved and taught. AB-so-lute-ly. I am a firm believer in first learning the tried-and-true paper-and-pencil methods. Even in meteorology school in the early 90's I understood it -- learn to do it the old way, and when the new way fails, you'll still be able to perform. And ... y'know? Many times doing it the pencil and paper way showed me things that computers just glossed over.. things that made a huge difference.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
My guess would be that because your brain expects a human copilot to screw up the directions or not provide them soon enough, you continue to focus on the route yourself. Your modern GPS is so close to infallible, though, that your brain just expects the directions to work and switches off. I've experienced the same thing myself.
From the title, it sounds like part of your brain is lost forever.
Question is not really if you are using same part of brain while navigating with or without GPS (it seems obvious there will be different parts activated). Interesting questions are:
- if after navigating with GPS for long enough, your ability to navigate without it in new terrain is hindered considerably, assuming you have grown up without reliance on GPS?
- is new generation which relied on GPS from very young age measurably worse at non-aided navigaton that other people?
I'm much more concerned about the parts of the brain switched off by Facebook. And Twitter. And Amazon, Apple, Google.
(Disclaimer: I do my orientation myself. I can even use a (gasp!) analog compass. But that's because I fucking enjoy doing that)
There's not much difference between my self-plotted route and the GPS route on when the roads are laid down in a grid. But a city nearby where I live has lots of curvy and bendy roads. When I plot a route on my own using a map, I tend to use intuitive directions - take a road until I'd pass the destination, turn, take the second road until I'd pass the destination, turn, take the third road until I'd pass the destination, etc. Basically, unravel the twisty roads into a quasi-grid, and plot a route along that grid. When I let the GPS plot the route, it comes up with seemingly-crazy directions where I change to a parallel road halfway to the destination for no reason than because it shaves 0.1 miles off the distance.
A similar thing happens with subway maps. At first subways tried using geographically accurate maps. But they soon found that subway riders had trouble learning the stops and when to get off. So they simplified the maps by straightening out a lot of the kinks and curves. The result is no longer geographically accurate, but is a lot easier for people to remember.
GPS Map: Turn Left,
GPS Map: Then Turn Left,
GPS Map: Turn Left again on the next intersection.
Me: Wait... have I been here before? oh well, I sure hope it's right.
GPS Map: Turn Left,
Is this just an elaborate excuse by one of the authors 'cos he followed this GPS and took a turn into a field?!
Could it be a default distrust of humans performing a repetitive and error prone task? So you listen more critically and perhaps engage in a conversation instead of simply executing tasks the navigator gives you.
Perhaps a bad navigator is exactly what we need. One that gets it right roughly but where map knowledge produces a better result.
My navigator is actually not that good. It's 6 years old, hasn't all the newest addresses and roads, and therefore sometime takes a bad route. Not only do I overrule it often but I feel good (smug?) for doing so.
Then again, I'm fascinated by maps. Like reading them. Knowing roads very few people take. Understanding that geography has mostly causal dependency on geology.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
I rarely use GPS/navigation (my car has none for instance).
So except when on sea I always have north up.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I found GPS directions were a good way of getting to know my way around when I moved here, but I looked at the planned route before I set off (walking or cycling) and was then able to look more at my surroundings. The phone in my pocket would tell me which turning to take, and so I'd get to know the routes very quickly and not need to look at the map. After a week, I wasn't bothering to set the directions. Having the GPS also gave me more confidence to explore - I could wander around in a random direction and know that I'd never actually get lost. Just like any other tool, the benefits of a satnav depend entirely on how you use it.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I would guess that the difference is that a satnav device gives you step-by-step instruction that you can blindly follow.
("Turn left, turn right, stay on the left lane, etc.") the information is very low level and simple. Almost giving you direct instruction about what to input on the control interface of the car.
(i.e.: you're mostly thinking about turning the wheel, pushing the pedals and fiddling with the transmission stick)
Whereas a passenger with a map will *communicate* with you. You'd be having a discussion about where you're going.
The passenger might give much more higher level instruction :
("See that traffic light at the end of the street? You'll need to turn left there" vs. "Stay in left lane. [pause] Turn left").
You and your passenger are communicating about your spacial environment.
And therefore your brain needs to think in term of spacial location in order to parse and process the informations given by your passenger.
(i.e.: you are still thinking spatially, because you need to process speech about spatial cues).
Now although IAAD, I'm not a neuro psychiatrist so the above guess might be wrong.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In hindsight, I've noticed this myself, but never really gave it much thought.
It also explains an annoyance I've found in games.
Over the years, game have increasingly added more and more navigation features to lead you to your goal. And it seems the more "hand-holdy" they become, the less I can remember where I'm at, where I'm going, how to get there, or what the overall area layout is like. And if I'm not alone here, player's then rely more on the waypoins, etc. And this in turn, seems to cause developers to become ever more helpful with navigation aids. And so on.
I've always attributed this to some kind of fundamental difference between real and virtual worlds. As I'm always thinking about how I'm never this lost in real life, how can I be so turned around in the game? So this make perfect sense.
Additionally, I wonder if this explains the difference between rotating and static minimaps. The rotating maps give me a better indication of how to get to a specific spot, but lead me to have zero understanding of the area. Whereas static maps let me understand the area, and I've apparently learned how to use them to get to a specific spot. (Though this might also be influenced by my upbringing in a time before smartphone maps.)
So I find it interesting that the very things to help you navigate might make you worse at it.
Which is also why the minimap is so crucial to getting a feel for, and understanding the area. For me, it seems to counter-act the disorienting effect of over-reliance of navigation aids. So when developers decide that they don't want to have a minimap for reasons, yet still include all the hand-holding, I now understand why this is the worst-case for actually understanding the area.
It seems the solution would be then, if you're against minimaps and want to encourage more natural exploration, you should also remove most of the navigation aids as well. Anything more than perhaps a compass, and a maybe a goal direction on that compass, will actually make players more lost, and have less of an understanding of the world you've created.
Using GPS means you don't have to think about how to get where you're going. Shocking.
I have the voice on my GPS turned off. I already know my way around, or at least have a mental image of where I'm at and where I'm going. Leaving the voice off makes me look at the signs and compare them to the map. I do like the ETA feature when I'm going to or coming back from work. Understand that my work could be anywhere in half dozen states and hundreds of cities and towns.
:)
Don't let the device lead you; instead think of it as a digital map. Keep north at the top of the screen. Learn the way streets are laid out. Avenues and streets east-west or north-south? Different cities do it differently. Roads and highways are numbered -- north-south are odd numbers and east-west are even numbers. And never forget that the sun rises in the east.
I've spent my whole career (40+ years) going to places I had never been to before. Back in the days before GPS all I needed to learn about a city was a paper map and a phone book. Paper maps were generally free from the local chamber of commerce - all you had to do was ask. I've never been lost driving. Been turned around and bewildered a couple of times backpacking, though.
US route numbering is fairly consistent. However, you might want to travel US 52. Sometimes it's signed north south; other times it's signed east-west.
Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
We know our fellow humans are very error prone, so when another human is giving you directions, you're creating a map in your head to make sure it all makes sense. We trust our nav systems implicitly and can see the map on the screen ourselves, thus we have no need to create a map to organize our thoughts.
Autonomous vehicles have some uses, particularly for the elderly, but they will damage humankind by taking away our traditional mastery over our own transportation, going back thousands of years. Learning how to drive a car is a rite of passage and it's a daily responsibility, backed by serious consequences to those who fuck up.
Taxi radio operator here - AC 'cause I have no log in ;-)
A whole bunch of drivers will drive to that dot on the map and say "where is my customer" and I say - can you see that big old school out side your window?
Or what ever it is as the dot on the map is in the wrong bloody place - yeah they get confused as they are thick, or lack common sense - take your choice.
But not all of them - actually many are pretty quite sharp and find customers beyond what I would have expected.
Example: 259 "no road name", Well Known Suburb - yeah yeah, the smart boys and girls sus out the "known" broken behavoiur,
Brain fade != cash, some kind of Darwinism I suppose...
That makes sense. You implicitly trust the SatNav to be accurate, but other people's direction could be erroneous. Ergo, your brain is constantly fact-checking their directions.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
I've been there just last weekend. A friend wanted to find someplace he hadn't been in years. The GPS said to turn on some rinky-dink street just by the highway. I hadn't been to that place at all, but that didn't sound right. My friend took that road anyway, and sure enough it led nowhere and he ended up with both me and the GPS telling him to just get on the !@#$ highway.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Its because we always verify information from people 'are they lying or wrong'. But totally trust the computer. It has no motive to lie.
I can see you're not using Windows 10.
Well played sir. Funny and coming out of left field.
The humorless reactionaries in here will take your +5 funny comment and turn you into a troll. I just wanted to acknowledge that some of us still have a sense of humor.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I drove across the US about 20 years ago using a HUD. Well I call it a HUD, I wrote the main waypoints on the windshield with a marker before each leg.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I had a cousin and her family come to town from Maryland and when it was time for them to go home, I tried to give them directions to the Turnpike. It was literally take the next four right turns and then drive about 6 miles, you'll see the signs.
She was like Nope, I'm GPSing it. The GPS gives her valid directions but they were longer and more complicated.
I was amused but she got home safely.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I much prefer to orient the map like the land (even a paper one), but if it works for you...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I drove across the US about 20 years ago using a HUD. Well I call it a HUD, I wrote the main waypoints on the windshield with a marker before each leg.
That's brilliant! Well, as long as you don't drive in the dark. Going to start doing that. Half the time, my GF can't read the step by step written instructions properly. "What's next?" "Where are we?" "You just read it to me 10 minutes ago, just go to the next one." Mapping and navigation are not her strong points.
Having the instructions right up there would mean I just get us there and we talk about whatever else instead.
I'm not even that old and I remember driving like this, memorize the major roads to get in the general area, pull over, check map and memorize to get close, repeat until you're there.
And there always the TripTik, basically GPS on paper.
My GPS screwup story is when we decided not to stay in the hotel connected to a casino (because it smelled like stale cigarette smoke and booze) and selected a nearby one from the GPS. It sent is out the parking lot, under the overpass, about a half mile down the road, making a few turns to get onto the overpass, then over the overpass and a few more turns, another mile or so, and we were at our destination - the same parking lot we started from! (two separate hotels with one parking lot)
I learn a route after I drive it a few times using the GPS. And also start ignoring invalid turns because I know roughly where I'm going, and that mental model gets stronger because of the repetition. I also start using it to refine the route and eventually arrive at the shortest possible path, at which point I stop using the GPS entirely because I know the complete optimal route.
I think a more useful study would be to study GPS rage caused by the GPS interpreting an extended stop (because long red lights arent a thing) as "The driver is lost, start blabbing directions on a loop". I suspect fixing this is a rather simple programming fix: if the mic hears expletives or "SHUT UP" the GPS stops talking for awhile or until the next turn is coming up.
I doubt anyone ever got modded down on slashdot for making a joke about Microsoft.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I used to look up directions on mapquest or google maps. I would study the recommended route, but also the alternative possible routes, and the general surrounding topography and major roads before i took off. That way if i took a wrong turn on the way, i would still have a general idea of where i was and where i needed to go.
Then GPS happened. At first i loved it and used it all the time. But the first time my GPS stopped working on-route, and I realized i had no clue where i was and had to pull over to restart the GPS device and hope it regained connection so i could continue my route, i realized how dependent i had become .
Nowadays i study the map before taking off like i used to, i make sure i understand the general path. "e.g. your going to take this major highway south, take this exit, and go east on this road until you are in this neighborhood, the house you are going to is somewhere in the neighborhood" So basically when i drive these days i already know where i am going, the GPS is only to tell me the best route to the major highway, or how to navigate the neighborhood to get to the exact house im going too. This way if the GPS putzes out on me on-route, i don't have to pull over, i can just keep driving until GPS kicks in again.... or i get to that neighborhood and then call my friend and ask them how to get to her exact house.
that my brain essentially shuts off
Does your brain shut off, or does it simply divert to another task like paying attention to the road? Your attention is a finite resource. Trying to figure out where you are is at odds with you manoeuvring a huge metal can on wheels through a dynamic obstacle course.
Computer AI shuts off the part of the brain used for thinking.
See, programmers are gods.
Before these fancy sat-navs, I used to take an address, and just go find it. Well, apparently my wife was in the habit of stopping to ask for directions. Sometimes she would be my passenger, and after a wrong turn or two would tell me "would you just stop and ask for directions already?"... ... she must have lost her mind if she thinks I'm going to stop and ask for directions!
I don't think it's that. I've noticed the same thing as the parent commenter, even when navigating to places the passenger has already been to or has total knowledge of where it is, e.g. their home.
"Those aren't errors in the GPS, but the data it's working with."
If you want to be technically accurate, I guess. But the term "GPS" as it is commonly used refers not just to the 24 satellites and the hardware, but to the map data and the presentation of information as well. In the end, the GPS is only as good as the data it relies on as far as the user is concerned.
Well, I got modded as "flamebait" :)
Those aren't errors in the GPS, but the data it's working with.
I'm curious what you'd rank as an 'error in the GPS'. I completely glossed over other classes of 'error'; such as the GPS guessing which way you are facing on a road when you start a trip so you drive six feet and then it recalculates a new route based on the fact that you are going the other direction but that's just 'bad data too'. Or then there are the times its positional reckoning is off -- so it tells you to turn but you are actually a block away from where it thinks you are but that's just 'bad data' too.
Are those errors in the GPS, Or in the data its working from...it seems to be a distiction without a difference to me.
We validate what the GPS is telling us to do, but we don't ignore it's instructions and plan our own path. If one can't turn left, they pass the turn and wait for the GPS to figure things out.
As often as not, it simply reroutes you around the block back to the same intersection you couldn't use the first time. If you are lucky it'll at least have you approach it from a new angle so you can legally turn... i've been unlucky on many occasions. And if the road is simply closed for construction or something you are boned when it does that.
If you can't get in the correct lane in time, again, no panic, just keep driving until the GPS recalculates.
Yeah, that's usually where the GPS starts insisting you make illegal U-turns at major intersections, or emergency vehicle access roads, etc...
I do not function that way. I have vast mental maps of places I have traveled. Including many major cities around the world, and the US. And I know the highway systems of several areas around the country, as well as the airports. Not to mention countless hiking and skiing trails. Plus rivers I have been down. I can close my eyes and picture them all clearly in my mind. I have been able to do this since I was in single digits. Perhaps I trained myself over the decades, but it comes as second nature at this point. Using GPS and looking at maps before I go helps me understand and familiarize areas before I visit. Reinforcing the whole experience for me when I experience it in real time. I rarely do need to use GPS or look at a map after I have done it once. I would be curious of the age of the people that were part of this study. Maybe if they relied on GPS their whole life they never developed that part of their brain because the didn't feel it necessary. Much the same way most of the phone numbers I had memorized before I got a cell phone I still have memorized, but I have maybe memorize 2 phone numbers in the 2 decades since.
If I listen to the computer, I can't remember shit. If a passenger looks at the map and does essentially the same function, I can remember everything fine and well.
You implicitly trust the computer. When a human tells you, your brain does not blindly trust and tries to figure out if what the person is saying is true.
Computers never lie... unless programmed to do so.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Was just watching this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...
There's a woman who has such an atrocious sense of direction she can get lost in her own house. Apparently she's playing video games & it's helping to rewire her noggin.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
IME *everyone* who drives through Soho has their brain switched off at the time.