Recent research has shown that playing video games regularly is linked to better navigation skills, while relying on GPS systems does not appear to impact the ability to find directions. The new study provides insight into how modern technology influences our cognitive functions, particularly in terms of orientation ability. The study was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.
Navigation is an essential cognitive function that involves complex processes such as planning routes, reading maps, identifying landmarks, and maintaining a sense of direction. The ability to navigate effectively is vital to daily life and can impact safety and independence.
Poor navigation skills can lead to distress and dangerous situations, especially for people with cognitive impairments or diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, where navigation deficits are often early symptoms. By understanding how everyday activities, such as playing video games and using GPS devices, affect navigation skills, researchers sought to uncover factors that might improve or impair this essential cognitive ability.
The motivation for the study also stems from previous findings suggesting that video games could improve spatial cognition, while relying on GPS could potentially weaken navigation skills. Video games often require players to navigate complex virtual environments, which can train their spatial awareness and problem-solving skills. In contrast, the use of GPS devices could offload cognitive processes that would otherwise be engaged during navigation, potentially leading to a decline in these skills.
“Understanding how daily activities influence individual differences in navigation ability is important given that the use of emerging modern technologies can both exercise a person’s navigation abilities, potentially e.g. video games, and be used to offload cognitive processes that normally occur during navigation, for example. GPS-assisted devices. However, the impact of video games and reliance on GPS has not been directly tested on a large scale using an objective navigation task,” said study author Emre Yavuz, a doctoral student in cognitive neuroscience at the University College London.
To study these relationships, researchers used the Sea Hero Quest mobile app, a validated tool for assessing navigation skills. Sea Hero Quest is a space navigation game that has demonstrated the ability to effectively predict real-world orientation performance. The study involved 822 participants from the United States, including 367 men and 455 women, with an average age of 26.3 years.
Participants were recruited through the Prolific database and completed a series of tasks in the Sea Hero Quest app to measure their navigation performance. The app asks players to navigate a virtual environment in a boat, searching for sea creatures based on maps provided at the start of each level.
In addition to the navigation tasks, participants completed self-assessment questionnaires about their GPS addiction and video game habits. The GPS Reliability Questionnaire assessed how often participants used GPS in various situations over the past month. For video game habits, participants reported the number of hours they spent playing video games each week, the types of games they played, and the devices they used.
The researchers found that participants who played video games ten or more hours per week showed significantly better browsing performance than those who played less. This finding supports the idea that video games, which often require players to navigate complex virtual environments, can improve spatial awareness and cognitive processes related to orientation.
Interestingly, the genre of video game played did not significantly alter this relationship, suggesting that the cognitive benefits of gaming may be broad and not limited to specific game types.
The researchers also considered the possibility that the Sea Hero Quest game itself, being a video game, might benefit participants more familiar with gaming interfaces. However, they found no significant association between game experience video and performance at the game’s tutorial level, which required minimal navigation skills. This suggests that the observed benefits of video gaming on navigation performance are specific to tasks that require cognitive demands such as orientation and spatial memory, rather than simple familiarity with game controls.
“The finding that video gaming was significantly associated with navigation performance only for the most difficult game levels was surprising/intriguing, given that it opens up the possibility that video gaming may be particularly important when navigation is more complex – an assumption that had not really been taken into account. been objectively tested by previous studies,” Yavuz told PsyPost.
The study’s findings on GPS addiction were also surprising. Despite previous research suggesting that heavy reliance on GPS could impair navigation skills by offloading cognitive processes to the device, researchers found no evidence that reliance on GPS systems had any impact, positive or negative, on navigation performance.
“If GPS use is bad for us, those who report using it the most should be worse navigators,” Yavuz said. “We don’t see any effect. GPS use is not related to navigation skills – at least for navigating new places with a map, as we tested.
But the study, like all research, has limitations. The sample was limited to participants in the United States, primarily young adults, which may not reflect broader demographic trends. Additionally, the study relied on cross-sectional data, meaning it captured a single point in time, limiting the ability to draw causal conclusions.
“This study was cross-sectional and revealed associations between variables,” Yavuz noted. “Further work will need to determine the causal associations between GPS/video game use and human spatial navigation performance, including intervention-based and real-world studies.”
Despite these limitations, the study opens exciting avenues for future research. An important direction is to determine whether the benefits of video gaming on navigation skills can be replicated in real-world settings. Although the Sea Hero Quest app is a valid tool for assessing navigation skills, it remains a virtual environment.
The study also raises questions about the potential of using video games as a cognitive training tool. If playing certain types of video games can improve navigation skills, it might be possible to develop targeted video game-based interventions to improve cognitive functions. This could be particularly beneficial for people with navigation disorders, such as those with early signs of Alzheimer’s disease or other cognitive disorders.
“Our studies provide a platform for future intervention-based and causal studies investigating the specific genres of video games that may be important in shaping one’s browsing performance, as well as determining how a person interacts with /use of GPS-assisted devices may be important in shaping their navigation performance,” Yavuz said.
The study titled “Video gaming, but not GPS use, is associated with spatial navigation performance” was authored by Emre Yavuz, Chuanxiuyue He, Christoffer J. Gahnstrom, Sarah Goodroe, Antoine Coutrot, Michael Hornberger, Mary Hegarty and Hugo J.. Spiers.