Sat-navs leave us in dark
January 20, 2012
Daily Express:
We instinctively remember maps and end up with a north-facing “compass” in our heads. But over-reliance on GPS devices could erase the maps from our brains, scientists say.
They ran virtual-reality tests on 26 residents of a town all had lived in for at least two years.
Subjects were made “sightless” by artificial fog – and when facing north they could point to where locations would be in real life.
Scientists Julia Frankenstein and Tobias Meilinge say the subjects did so well because they had all “seen, and internalised”, a map of their town, Tubingen in Germany.
But the researchers warn that relying too much on GPS devices will eventually wipe out our memorised maps.
Read the whole story: Daily Express
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