11/4(Tue) The "Inner GPS" in Our Brains (Host: Kooper)

[Kooper]

The Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine was given Monday morning to three scientists who've uncovered the "inner GPS" in our brains that helps us find our way through the world around us, identifying where we are, where we've been and how to get back there again. From the Nobel committee's poetic announcement:

The discoveries of John O'Keefe, May‐Britt Moser and Edvard Moser have solved a problem that has occupied philosophers and scientists for centuries – how does the brain create a map of the space surrounding us and how can we navigate our way through a complex environment?

The answers have some direct implications for how we understand diseases like Alzheimer's that rob people of their spatial memory. But they also have some fascinating implications for perfectly healthy people, too, and for the way we design spaces — from individual buildings to neighborhoods and whole transportation networks — that we move through daily. While the first story is clearly the province of scientists and doctors, the second is very much of interest to urban planners, architects and cartographers.

For them, the evolving science of your "inner GPS" could help create places that aren't so confusing — or help us understand why so many of the places we've already built (medical complexes, train stations, downtown Atlanta) are.

First, a very quick sketch of what the newest Nobel laureates have taught us about our brains (and the brains of rats): Back in 1971, O'Keefe discovered nerve cells in rats that activated each time the animals passed by a particular location in a room. When the rats were in one corner, certain cells in their brains activated; when they were in a different part of the room, other cells lit up. O'Keefe called these "place cells," and research since his initial discovery suggests that humans have them, too. They help us construct mental maps of space, recognizing the difference between one street corner and the next, between your cubicle and your coworker's. The Mosers (they're married) much more recently added to this the discovery of "grid cells" that, along with place cells, allow us to determine our position in the world and to navigate through it.

All of this inner navigational work happens without any conscious effort on our part. And yet actual navigation is a real-world challenge most of us wrestle with every day. When you're wandering through a hospital, how do you find the right doctor's office? When you're walking through an unfamiliar city, how do you find your way back to your hotel? In a world where so many of us now use literal GPS systems — with smartphones or in-car navigation screens — are we outsourcing our mental maps to machines? As Sarah Goodyear has explained, for instance, children who are driven everywhere (instead of walking) often don't know where they're going.

In the world of architecture, there's now research underway to determine if all this new neuroscience could help design hospitals where people are less likely to get lost. In many cities, local governments are now deploying the science (and art) of "wayfinding," creating street signs and cues that might more intuitively help people find their way through baffling environments (and toward, say, the train station or nearest public bathroom).

Scientists are also learning a lot about the external cues — sights, smells and sounds around us — that influence all this internal mapping in our brains. Perhaps this might ultimately tell us something about which kinds of environments aid or tax our brains more: chaotic cities or quiet suburbs, visually stimulating neighborhoods, or cookie-cutter subdivisions?

Mayank Mehta, a neurophysicist at UCLA who has studied place cells, raised a provocative issue when I talked to him about all of this last year. Evolutionarily speaking, our brains evolved to understand space and navigation moving at a slow speed — while walking. But now, most of us travel, navigate and process environments every day by car (or in even more disorienting environments like subway systems). So how does that change the brain's ability to understand space? "The fastest we learned to process the world go by was the fastest a human could run," Mehta told me. "In a car, the world goes way faster than that."

It's too soon to say what that means for our internal maps (and the frustration we experience moving through the world). But these questions broached by the research of neuroscientists could influence the way we think about building better environments in the real world.



Questions for Discussion:
Session One:
1. Do you consider yourself a person with a good or lousy sense of direction? In what environment do you get lost most easily - inside a building, at an open space, in a forest, or others?

2. When I was a junior high school student, I spent one whole summer break cycling around the Taipei city - with a map in my backpack - to learn roads of Taipei. How did you learn roads of the Taipei, the New Taipei city or the city that you grew up in?

3. Have you had such experiences in which you stepped out of a MRT station that you were not familiar with and had no clue which direction would lead you to your destination? In such situation what do you usually do to find the directions? When you go backpacking in foreign countries how do you avoid getting lost?

Session Two:
4. When you are in a bus or vehicle, do you usually stay aware of where you are and which direction, either north, south, east, or west, you are moving towards? Does the awareness bring you a sense of security and the opposite make you feel anxious?

5. Do you use GPS, Google Map, or other kinds of online maps very often? Do you usually look it up as a map or use it for route navigation? From your own experiences, does replying on these new technical services improve or weaken your sense of direction?

6. Please share with your table members one of your most pleasant or unpleasant experiences of getting lost.

7. What do you think is the value of the Google's street-view service? Has it helped you make anything done easier?

********************************************************************************************************************************************
Agenda:
6:45 ~ 7:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
7:00 ~ 7:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
7:10 ~ 7:50pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
7:50 ~ 8:10pm Summarization (20 mins)
8:10 ~ 8:25pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
8:25 ~ 9:05pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
9:05 ~ 9:25pm Summarization (20 mins)
9:25 ~ 9:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements ********************************************************************************************************************************************
聚會日期：列於該貼文主題內
聚會時間：當天請準時於 6:45 pm 到達 ~ 約 9:30 pm 左右結束
星期二聚會地點：丹堤濟南店
地址、電話：台北市濟南路三段25號 地圖 (02) 2740-2350
捷運站：板南線 忠孝新生站 3 號出口
走法：出忠孝新生站 3 號出口後，沿著巷子(忠孝東路三段10巷)走約 2 分鐘，到了濟南路口，左轉走約 2 分鐘即可看到。
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[Rock]

Of course we've lost some abilities in the long process of evolution. Talking about sense of direction, many animals are doing much better than us. But, who cares? According to Darwin, the only reason that we've lost them is just because we don't need them any more. Anyway, if someone really wants to improve this skill, he or she can build a labyrinth to train themselves, or play a first-person shooting game like CS or Doom and get lost in the virtue world.

[Iris Wu]

It never occurred to me that my brain is equipped with any “inner GPS”, because I definitely belong to the group with “no sense of direction”. I can get lost literally anywhere. And I found this kind of “inner GPS” genes seem to run in families, all my siblings are like me, we are pretty much directionally challenged. So, I love GPS (the device) very much, I cannot drive without it.

Some people think reliance on GPS makes their sense of direction worse, so they refuse to use it. I really don't mind being directed by the device. A lot of time, I even wish there is some kind of “GPS for life”. There are many "intersections" in our life's journey, every time I stand at the "crossroads" of life, I wish there is a nice and convenient "GPS" which can clearly show me all the paths and rescue me from getting lost or making tough decisions.

[Rock]

If you want a "life GPS", Iris, you can join an Amish church. I guess their priests would be more than happy to tell you what path you should go. The Amish don't seem to worry if the path is the right one or not, either.

They don't seem to worry about choices at all.

[Lawrencenz Cheng]

If you want a "life GPS", Iris, you can join an Amish church. I guess their priests would be more than happy to tell you what path you should go. The Amish don't seem to worry if the path is the right one or not, either.

They don't seem to worry about choices at all.

Hi Rock:
I totally agree with you!
Simple life would be more wonderful for human,
And, you may hear the precious voice from our mighty God!
I did have such experience in New Zealand.

[jimdandy]

I’m not sure what’s wrong with my "inner GPS", but my brain does equip with a DGS -“direction guessing system”-. Whenever I get lost driving, the system will activate automatically & unconsciously, and during the process, it is always quite thrilling and exciting for there is a fifty-fifty chance of guessing wrong direction then being stuck between a rock and a hard place. But, given the fact that literal GPS nowadays, from time to time, leads people to the backwoods in the middle of nowhere, my DGS is somehow referable, especially sometimes I really luck out, the accuracy of DGS could hit 70 percent. So, is it possible that DGS has something to do with "inner GPS"? When everytime we guess the right direction and then we catch that exact feelings and vibes, maybe this will really improve our senses of direction. Haa….just babbling.

[CarmenTao]

Hi! Kooper,
I like this article. I'll see you and other folks then.

[Kooper]

Hi! Kooper,
I like this article. I'll see you and other folks then.

Hi Carmen, it's great to hear from you. We haven't seen each other for such a long time!! (how many years?) I am glad you are still active in YOYO meetings. See you then.

[Kooper]

Of course we've lost some abilities in the long process of evolution. Talking about sense of direction, many animals are doing much better than us. But, who cares? According to Darwin, the only reason that we've lost them is just because we don't need them any more. Anyway, if someone really wants to improve this skill, he or she can build a labyrinth to train themselves, or play a first-person shooting game like CS or Doom and get lost in the virtue world.

Hi Rock, you raised a good question here. After all, with the help of GPS and Google Map, who really need a good sense of direction? But I can’t help but believe that there must be a job that benefits the most by having a sense of direction much better than ordinary people. Take the sense of smell as an example; human beings’ ability to smell is hopelessly lousy compared to many other animals. This according to Darwin implies that we human don’t need a super sensitive nose to survive. This may be true in most cases, but not to a perfumer, who depends on an acute sense of smell for their livelihood.

[Kooper]

It never occurred to me that my brain is equipped with any “inner GPS”, because I definitely belong to the group with “no sense of direction”. I can get lost literally anywhere. And I found this kind of “inner GPS” genes seem to run in families, all my siblings are like me, we are pretty much directionally challenged. So, I love GPS (the device) very much, I cannot drive without it.

Some people think reliance on GPS makes their sense of direction worse, so they refuse to use it. I really don't mind being directed by the device. A lot of time, I even wish there is some kind of “GPS for life”. There are many "intersections" in our life's journey, every time I stand at the "crossroads" of life, I wish there is a nice and convenient "GPS" which can clearly show me all the paths and rescue me from getting lost or making tough decisions.

There are many occasions in my lifetime where I wish I had made a different decision. I have made tons of unwise choices. Luckily none of them have been disastrous enough to completely destroy my life. The bad decisions, together with those good ones, however have made me who I am now and walk on current path of life. I have passed many points of no return. These different life journeys can only exist in my dreams or fantasies of a sleepless night. GPS for life? Of course that is something I aspire to....

But after thinking twice, if such gadget does exist, will it be a blessing from the God or a lure from a demon?

[Kooper]

I’m not sure what’s wrong with my "inner GPS", but my brain does equip with a DGS -“direction guessing system”-. Whenever I get lost driving, the system will activate automatically & unconsciously, and during the process, it is always quite thrilling and exciting for there is a fifty-fifty chance of guessing wrong direction then being stuck between a rock and a hard place. But, given the fact that literal GPS nowadays, from time to time, leads people to the backwoods in the middle of nowhere, my DGS is somehow referable, especially sometimes I really luck out, the accuracy of DGS could hit 70 percent. So, is it possible that DGS has something to do with "inner GPS"? When everytime we guess the right direction and then we catch that exact feelings and vibes, maybe this will really improve our senses of direction. Haa….just babbling.

Hi JD, your DGS does sound like the “inner GPS” to me… just that it is working subliminally, not consciously in your case.

[Iris Wu]

There are many occasions in my lifetime where I wish I had made a different decision. I have made tons of unwise choices. Luckily none of them have been disastrous enough to completely destroy my life. The bad decisions, together with those good ones, however have made me who I am now and walk on current path of life. I have passed many points of no return. These different life journeys can only exist in my dreams or fantasies of a sleepless night. GPS for life? Of course that is something I aspire to....

Well said, Kooper!

Right, we would never know the paths that we did not choose. We live on our decisions and move forward and try to manage it with no (or minimum) regrets. Hopefully, as Steve Jobs put it, someday we know how to connect all the dots from our previous paths.

“GPS for Life”, yeah, it is a wishful thinking, I only “dream about” that while at some crossroads or turning points of life. I know when it gets to “directions of life”, people will offer you the religious advice, but for me that is like “common cement” (ha, a joke learned from Ellen DeGeneres' speech); maybe it is an answer or “the” answer, but I am more of a believer of naturalism. I only hope for man-made solutions to solve human life puzzle.

[Tina Sun]

It never occurred to me that my brain is equipped with any “inner GPS”, because I definitely belong to the group with “no sense of direction”. I can get lost literally anywhere.

Iris, that makes two of us.!!! Hahaha... And I am so helpless..... XDDD

Kooper, Somehow my topic next week is a little bit (very a little) related to yours. Hahaha...

See you guys (and ladies) tonight.

[Iris Wu]

Tina, I think Liwen is one of our kind as well. Remember she said when she was driving, how her families "escorted"her (i.e. putting her car in the middle)?

[Kooper]

Here are photos of the meeting.




Find more of them here: https://picasaweb.google.com/110854910335428507726

Attendees: Blithe (new comer), Emmy (new comer), Chau (new comer), Iris, Liwen, Morris, Wenhan, Rock, Tina, Jessica, Chris, JD, Carmen