In 2000, a study found
that taxi drivers who acquire The Knowledge – which requires memorizing
thousands of London streets – have a greater volume of grey matter in the
posterior hippocampus but less in the anterior hippocampus, making them better
at memory tasks involving landmarks but poorer at recalling complex visual
information. This provided evidence for plasticity in the adult human brain.
Could our reliance on GPS
also be changing the way our brains work? Researchers from McGill University in
Canada used MRI scans to compare GPS users with non-GPS users. Those who
navigated without GPS had higher activity and a greater volume of grey matter
in the hippocampus than those who relied on GPS.
In another study, people
who drove a route using sat-nav could not remember scenes from the journey as
well as those without sat-nav, and were poorer at retracing their steps from
memory alone.
“It’s possible that reliance on technology could cause some brain areas
to grow and others to shrink,” says University College London’s Dr Sam
Gilbert. “Something similar was shown in
the original taxi driver study. But occasional use of sat-nav probably won’t
have as strong an effect as learning The Knowledge and relying on it as part of
your job.”
(Summarized from BBC Earth Magazine (Vol.9 Issue 1), page
34 by Jo Carlowe)
Verdict: Yes,
technology may change our brains when it comes to navigation
Lord, Give
Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)
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