Landmark Sequence Learning from Real-World Route Navigation and the Impact of Navigation Aid Visualisation Style.

Primacy and recency features of serial memory are a hallmark of typical memory functions that have been observed for a wide array of tasks. Recently, the ubiquity of this serial position effect has been supported for objects learned during navigation, with canonical serial position functions observed for sequence memory of landmarks that were encountered along a route during a highly controlled virtual navigation task. In the present study, we extended those findings to a real-world navigation task in which participants actively walked a route through a city whilst using a navigation aid featuring either realistic or abstract landmark visualisation styles. Analyses of serial position functions (i.e., absolute sequence knowledge) and sequence lags (i.e., relative sequence knowledge) yielded similar profiles to those observed in a lab based virtual navigation task from previous work and non-spatial list learning studies. There were strong primacy effects for serial position memory in both conditions; recency effects only in the realistic visualisation condition; a non-uniform distribution of item-lags peaking at lag +1; and an overall bias towards positive lags for both visualisation conditions. The findings demonstrate that benchmark serial position memory effects can be observed in uncontrolled, real-world behaviour. In a navigation context, the results support the notion that general memory mechanisms are involved in spatial learning, and that landmark sequence knowledge is a feature of spatial knowledge which is affected by navigation aids.

Using spontaneous eye blink-related brain activity to investigate cognitive load during mobile map-assisted navigation.

The continuous assessment of pedestrians' cognitive load during a naturalistic mobile map-assisted navigation task is challenging because of limited experimental control over stimulus presentation, human-map-interactions, and other participant responses. To overcome this challenge, the present study takes advantage of navigators' spontaneous eye blinks during navigation to serve as event markers in continuously recorded electroencephalography (EEG) data to assess cognitive load in a mobile map-assisted navigation task. We examined if and how displaying different numbers of landmarks (3 vs. 5 vs. 7) on mobile maps along a given route would influence navigators' cognitive load during navigation in virtual urban environments. Cognitive load was assessed by the peak amplitudes of the blink-related fronto-central N2 and parieto-occipital P3. Our results show increased parieto-occipital P3 amplitude indicating higher cognitive load in the 7-landmark condition, compared to showing 3 or 5 landmarks. Our prior research already demonstrated that participants acquire more spatial knowledge in the 5- and 7-landmark conditions compared to the 3-landmark condition. Together with the current study, we find that showing 5 landmarks, compared to 3 or 7 landmarks, improved spatial learning without overtaxing cognitive load during navigation in different urban environments. Our findings also indicate a possible cognitive load spillover effect during map-assisted wayfinding whereby cognitive load during map viewing might have affected cognitive load during goal-directed locomotion in the environment or vice versa. Our research demonstrates that users' cognitive load and spatial learning should be considered together when designing the display of future navigation aids and that navigators' eye blinks can serve as useful event makers to parse continuous human brain dynamics reflecting cognitive load in naturalistic settings.

Public Health Interventions, Epidemic Growth, and Regional Variation of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Outbreak in a Swiss Canton and Its Greater Regions.

Public health interventions implemented during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are based on experience gained from past pandemics. The 1918 influenza pandemic is the most extensively researched historical influenza outbreak. All 9335 reports available in the State Archives on 121 152 cases of influenza-like illness from the canton of Bern from 473 of 497 municipalities (95.2%) were collected; the cases were registered between 30 June 1918 and 30 June 1919. The overall incidence rates of newly registered cases per week for the 9 greater regions of Bern for both the first and second waves of the pandemic were calculated. Relative incidence rate ratios (RIRRs) were calculated to estimate the change in the slope of incidence curves associated with public health interventions. During the first wave, school closures (RIRR, 0.16 [95% CI, 0.15 to 0.17]) and restrictions of mass gatherings (RIRR, 0.57 [CI, 0.54 to 0.61]) were associated with a deceleration of epidemic growth. During the second wave, in autumn 1918, cantonal authorities initially reacted hesitantly and delegated the responsibility to enact interventions to municipal authorities, which was associated with a lack of containment of the second wave. A premature relaxation of restrictions on mass gatherings was associated with a resurgence of the epidemic (RIRR, 1.18 [CI, 1.12 to 1.25]). Strikingly similar patterns were found in the management of the COVID-19 outbreak in Switzerland, with a considerably higher amplitude and prolonged duration of the second wave and much higher associated rates of hospitalization and mortality.

Exploring Uncertainty in Canine Cancer Data Sources Through Dasymetric Refinement.

In spite of the potentially groundbreaking environmental sentinel applications, studies of canine cancer data sources are often limited due to undercounting of cancer cases. This source of uncertainty might be further amplified through the process of spatial data aggregation, manifested as part of the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP). In this study, we explore potential explanatory factors for canine cancer incidence retrieved from the Swiss Canine Cancer Registry (SCCR) in a regression modeling framework. In doing so, we also evaluate differences in statistical performance and associations resulting from a dasymetric refinement of municipal units to their portion of residential land. Our findings document severe underascertainment of cancer cases in the SCCR, which we linked to specific demographic characteristics and reduced use of veterinary care. These explanatory factors result in improved statistical performance when computed using dasymetrically refined units. This suggests that dasymetric mapping should be further tested in geographic correlation studies of canine cancer incidence and in future comparative studies involving human cancers.

Virtual environments as memory training devices in navigational tasks for older adults.

Cognitive training approaches using virtual environments (VEs) might counter age-related visuospatial memory decline and associated difficulties in wayfinding. However, the effects of the visual design of a VE in route learning are not fully understood. Therefore, we created a custom-designed VE optimized for route learning, with adjusted levels of realism and highlighted landmark locations (MixedVE). Herein we tested participants' route recall performance in identifying direction of turn at the intersection with this MixedVE against two baseline alternatives (AbstractVE, RealisticVE). An older vs. a younger group solved the tasks in two stages (immediate vs. delayed recall by one week). Our results demonstrate that the MixedVE facilitates better recall accuracy than the other two VEs for both age groups. Importantly, this pattern persists a week later. Additionally, our older participants were mostly overconfident in their route recall performance, but the MixedVE moderated this potentially detrimental overconfidence. Before the experiment, participants clearly preferred the RealisticVE, whereas after the experiment, most of the younger, and many of the older participants, preferred the MixedVE. Taken together, our findings provide insights into the importance of tailoring visualization design in route learning with VEs. Furthermore, we demonstrate the great potential of the MixedVE and by extension, of similar VEs as memory training devices for route learning, especially for older participants.

Not all anxious individuals get lost: Trait anxiety and mental rotation ability interact to explain performance in map-based route learning in men.

Navigation through an environment is a fundamental human activity. Although group differences in navigational ability are documented (e.g., gender), little is known about traits that predict these abilities. Apart from a well-established link between mental rotational abilities and navigational learning abilities, recent studies point to an influence of trait anxiety on the formation of internal cognitive spatial representations. However, it is unknown whether trait anxiety affects the processing of information obtained through externalized representations such as maps. Here, we addressed this question by taking into account emerging evidence indicating impaired performance in executive tasks by high trait anxiety specifically in individuals with lower executive capacities. For this purpose, we tested 104 male participants, previously characterised on trait anxiety and mental rotation ability, on a newly-designed map-based route learning task, where participants matched routes presented dynamically on a city map to one presented immediately before (same/different judgments). We predicted an interaction between trait anxiety and mental rotation ability, specifically that performance in the route learning task would be negatively affected by anxiety in participants with low mental rotation ability. Importantly, and as predicted, an interaction between anxiety and mental rotation ability was observed: trait anxiety negatively affected participants with low-but not high-mental rotation ability. Our study reveals a detrimental role of trait anxiety in map-based route learning and specifies a disadvantage in the processing of map representations for high-anxious individuals with low mental rotation abilities.

Colorful brains: 14 years of display practice in functional neuroimaging.

Neuroimaging results are typically graphically rendered and color-coded, which influences the process of knowledge generation within neuroscience as well as the public perception of brain research. Analyzing these issues requires empirical information on the display practice in neuroimaging. In our study we evaluated more than 9000 functional images (fMRI and PET) published between 1996 and 2009 with respect to the use of color, image structure, image production software and other factors that may determine the display practice. We demonstrate a variety of display styles despite a remarkable dominance of few image production sites and software systems, outline some tendencies of standardization, and identify shortcomings with respect to color scale explication in neuroimages. We discuss the importance of the finding for knowledge production in neuroimaging, and we make suggestions to improve the display practice in neuroimaging, especially on regimes of color coding.

Thinking about the weather: How display salience and knowledge affect performance in a graphic inference task.

Three experiments examined how bottom-up and top-down processes interact when people view and make inferences from complex visual displays (weather maps). Bottom-up effects of display design were investigated by manipulating the relative visual salience of task-relevant and task-irrelevant information across different maps. Top-down effects of domain knowledge were investigated by examining performance and eye fixations before and after participants learned relevant meteorological principles. Map design and knowledge interacted such that salience had no effect on performance before participants learned the meteorological principles; however, after learning, participants were more accurate if they viewed maps that made task-relevant information more visually salient. Effects of display design on task performance were somewhat dissociated from effects of display design on eye fixations. The results support a model in which eye fixations are directed primarily by top-down factors (task and domain knowledge). They suggest that good display design facilitates performance not just by guiding where viewers look in a complex display but also by facilitating processing of the visual features that represent task-relevant information at a given display location. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).