If you grew up in Paris, your sense of direction might not be the same as someone from New York. In any case, this is the theory of a new global study co-directed by the CNRS.
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To reach such conclusions, the researchers compared the performance of nearly 400,000 people from 38 different countries. The tool used to assess participants’ sense of orientation? The “Sea Hero Quest” video game, developed specifically for diagnose Alzheimer’s disease.
Conducted by a team of researchers from the National Institute of Applied Sciences in Lyon, in collaboration with the CNRS and the University College of London, the study suggests that growing up in a rural environment helps more to find one’s way in the space than if you grew up in an urban area.
«Rural areas are by nature more complex than squared cities: the road networks are less organized and the distances traveled are often greater”, explains to ETX Daily Up Antoine Coutrot, researcher at the CNRS and co-author of the study. And this finding seems to cross borders, although it is much more marked in Canada, the United States, Argentina or Saudi Arabia than in other countries.
The study also notes a difference between the inhabitants of the world’s major cities. According to the results, having grown up in a convoluted city such as Paris or Prague, for example, confers a better sense of direction in adulthood.
“The street networks in Paris or Prague are particularly tortuous, at least as much as what can be found outside the cities. This explains the differences between countries. In Europe or Asia, cities are generally complex, so the differences in spatial skills are smaller between city dwellers and non-city dwellers. But in other countries, the cities are often simpler, more gridded, as is the case in Argentina, Canada or the United States”, specifies Antoine Coutrot.
Better detect Alzheimer’s disease
Logically, individuals also have more faculties to locate themselves in space when they find themselves in cities whose layout resembles those they lived in during childhood. A New Yorker may therefore find it difficult to orient himself in Paris, but will undoubtedly be more at ease in a city like Chicago.
“The sense of direction is like all cognitive abilities: the more you use it, the better it becomes! We can therefore deduce that when we grow up in a complex city, we use our sense of direction more, because we need it more than in a city where it is easier to find our bearings”, analyzes Antoine Coutrot.
These new scientific data make it possible to better identify the cognitive abilities of the adult and to integrate them into the methods of diagnosis and management of neurodegenerative pathologies. “We show that the environment in which we grow up shapes our cognitive skills, in particular those related to spatial navigation. This information is important when it comes to using spatial navigation tests in a clinical context, for example for screening for Alzheimer’s disease. A doctor will be able to adapt his interpretation of the results of the tests according to the childhood environment of his patients”, develops Antoine Coutrot.
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