Don't ditch your paper maps just yet

You might think that hand-held global positioning systems (GPS), which can provide a live update of your location and surroundings, would make the benefit of a paper map redundant. But in a new study, Toru Ishikawa and colleagues have shown that people using a GPS device make more errors and take longer reaching their destination than people using an old-fashioned map.

Sixty-six participants on foot attempted to find their way to six locations in an urban environment. The routes were relatively short (between 157 and 325 yards) and each involved three turns. Twenty-two participants used a mobile phone with a GPS capability, 23 used an A4-sized map, and the remainder were taken along the routes by a researcher, before having to find their way on their own.

Not only did the GPS participants make more stops, walk further and more slowly than the map users, they also demonstrated less knowledge of the routes when asked to sketch a map of them afterwards. The most proficient participants were those who'd been shown the routes by the researchers - they arrived at their destinations faster and stopped fewer times than both the GPS and map users.

So why was the use of GPS inferior to using a paper map? The researchers said part of the explanation might be a lack of familiarity with the technology. Also, unlike the paper map, the size of the GPS screen meant it wasn't always possible to see one's own location and the destination at the same time. Finally, using GPS, which constantly updates itself, encourages people to stare down at the screen, rather than looking around at their environment. "We believe that for the development of effective navigational aids, continued empirical research on these issues is needed," the researchers said.
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ISHIKAWA, T. (2008). Wayfinding with a GPS-based mobile navigation system: A comparison with maps and direct experience. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 28(1), 74-82. DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2007.09.002

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Elsewhere

For when you've had enough of journal articles:

A new series is starting this evening on BBC Radio 4, entitled Am I normal? The series asks how professionals draw the line between someone who is OK and someone who isn't? The first episode tackles Social Phobia.

Psyblog explains why psychology is not all common sense.

Mind Hacks flags up an article in Time magazine on expertise showing that it's all about practising the hardest bits.

ABC Radio's series All in the Mind continues with episodes on women offenders and the nature of consciousness (links are to MP3 audio files).

A New York Times article argues that it helps if therapists have had the humbling experience of having been in therapy themselves.

The RSA's online journal asks whether there's a link between ADHD and entrepreneurship.

Over at the Predictably Irrational website, you can try out the door game, which demonstrates how our desire to keep our options open can backfire. See this New York Times article for commentary.

According to an article in the New Republic, behavioural economist Richard Tyler is advising the Obama campaign team (via Mind Hacks).

Life before death - a forthcoming exhibition from the Wellcome Trust "reveals the preciousness and transience of life, and make us question what we often take for granted."

Watch interviews with some of the world's leading experts on consciousness via the website of the Mind and Reality conference, held in February 2006.

Can depression contribute to society? - Lewis Wolpert and Paul Keedwell discuss on BBC Radio 4's Today programme (link is to audio file).

You know what they say about men with long ring fingers. The Times has an interview with John Manning who researches the link between finger ratios and behavioural traits.

Listen to the academic and city trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week: He argues that the existence of highly improbable events which have a massive impact and are nearly impossible to predict - Black swans - mean we should ignore ‘experts’, stop reading newspapers and learn to take advantage of uncertainty. Also, catch him talking at the Uni of Oxford today, or at LSE tomorrow.

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