GPS Says “You Are Here”
If you don’t know where you are, then… you can’t get there from here. Or, in the language of researchers:
Orientation in an unknown environment is a critical factor for successfully arriving at a specified destination and requires usually external knowledge sources.
In other words, you have to know where you are to get where you want to go. Which requires an “external knowledge source,” also known as a map.
So, you stand in front of a posted map of a mall, or a university campus, or an amusement park and look for the arrow indicating the spot: You are here. Now you can orient yourself, develop a sense of the space and pick your route.
Navigation then follows from observation of your surroundings. Once you know where you are, the guiding landmarks can fall into place. We are not born knowing how to navigate. We learn through practice, which strengthens the hippocampus — the seat of navigation in the brain.
Strengthening the hippocampus can be observed by MRI study.
Eleanor Maguire of University of College London conducted MRI measurements of the hippocampi of 79 aspiring London taxi drivers before and after their 3-to-4-year training. To earn a license, London taxi drivers must master “The Knowledge” — how to locate and navigate all 25,000 city streets. Maguire and her colleagues reported in 2000 that the posterior hippocampi of the 39 drivers who passed the test had grown larger — exceeding the 40 who failed, and far exceeding the non-driver control group.
By law, London cab drivers must pass "The Knowledge test. However, Uber drivers roll through the streets of London without any test. Their navigational knowledge comes through Global Positioning Systems (GPS) or satellite navigation (Sat nav as it’s called in the U.K.). GPS replaces 3-to-4 years of study with a flip of a switch. Licensed cabbies argue that Uber drivers — functioning as cabs — use technology to skirt the law and avoid the test.
The New York Taxi and Limousine Commission changed the test for New York taxi licenses to accommodate GPS: geography questions which used to dominate the test now constitute only 10 map reading questions out of 80 total questions. Passing the revised exam is easier. However, New York streets remain challenging. A new licensee was asked by the New York Times if he could drive to Penn Station, Times Square, or Grand Central Terminal. He replied, “Absolutely not… Honestly, I don’t know how to drive there. I’d need the passenger to tell me, or I would have to use the GPS.”
Who needs a map when we have GPS? GPS does everything for you in the soothing voice of your choice, and with vaunted high-tech accuracy.
Occasionally, GPS will guide the unsuspecting driver into a pond, a lake, or even the ocean. People have been reported to drive hundreds of miles out of their way, trusting the GPS guide star: a Belgian bus driver drove to Spain rather than the Swiss Alps, a man drove 200 miles past Reykjavik, Iceland, another nearly plunged his car over a cliff, elsewhere a woman caused an accident by heeding GPS and ignoring a yield sign, and tourists have driven into the sea in Australia.
Each year, six million faithful pilgrims travel to Lourdes, France seeking the Statue of Our Lady at the Grotto of Massabielle. Every day, faith in GPS drives as many as 20 would-be-pilgrims to a different village 59 miles east of the Grotto. The villagers try to redirect the wayward souls back to the west. Undaunted, though, the pilgrims often light candles at the village statue of Mary — a much smaller, humbler version. Apparently, they believe that GPS delivered them to the mountain village of 94 people for a reason. And the reason is simple: the pilgrims seek Lourdes, but they are now in the village of Lourde. The lack of an ‘s’ threatens their faith in GPS.
Usually, GPS isn’t to blame for these blunders. Human mistakes drive people off the edge. Swedish tourists hoping to reach the island of Capri in the Bay of Naples (southern Italy) wound up in Carpi (northern Italy). Even spell check cannot remedy this 400-mile error.
How can you drive 400 miles and not wonder where you’re going? Blind faith?
We trust technology so much that we don’t pay attention. We are happy to outsource our spatial orientation and navigational skills. However, failure to use mental skills causes atrophy:
Drivers who use GPS often find that their navigation skills have atrophied. Like any other cognitive skill, map reading and navigation need to be practiced in order to not diminish.
A follow-up study of active London cab drivers in 2006 confirmed the earlier finding of increased hippocampus gray matter. However, the brains of retired cab drivers demonstrated reduced gray matter in the hippocampus. Without daily passengers, the hippocampus was inactive. Without regular navigational activity, the hippocampus diminished in size.
GPS is passive. You wait to be given the next command. Without GPS, the driver is active, marking landmarks, towns, distances, and road signs. She must engage with the world through observation, navigation, and map reading.
A map is an elaborate simile of a section of the world. It allows the mind to see and plan in the abstract. We develop a mental map which we use as we pass through the world, a world we observe to coordinate and adjust our mental map. Observation is the first step in learning. It is how we understand where we are.
For centuries sailors navigated by observing the stars. Today the United States Navy uses GPS to navigate. Jim Gosler, one of the founders of CIA cybersecurity, said, "Nobody knows how to do [star navigation] now.” Nobody needs to know how to do it. Except, as Gosler points out, technology fails. GPS is also vulnerable to hacking. Gosler:
What makes cyber so potentially devastating is first and foremost our utter dependence on the stuff for everything that we do in life. It's easy to grasp and understand the benefits [of digital technology]. It's not so easy to understand our dependence on it and consequences associated with being denied that stuff, based on the unbelievable dependency that we have. Medications, banking, medical, just information you know… but an average Joe's way of life would be dramatically affected.
Navigation is not an essential skill for us anymore. We don’t hunt walrus in the snow, blaze trails through the wilderness, or guide naval destroyers across the sea. GPS makes life easier. However, like the retired London cabbies, the unused synapses of the hippocampus are pruned. Our navigational skills deteriorate.
The deterioration of navigational skills is a canary in the neural coal mine. What will happen to our creativity or our decision-making skills as we outsource those tasks to artificial intelligence?
The sign on the map says, “You are here.” We may be here, but we have to be wondering where to go next.
Dan Hunter is an award-winning playwright, songwriter, teacher and founding partner of Hunter Higgs, LLC, an advocacy and communications firm. H-IQ, the Hunter Imagination Questionnaire, invented by Dan Hunter and developed by Hunter Higgs, LLC, received global recognition for innovation by Reimagine Education, the world’s largest awards program for innovative pedagogies. Out of a field of 1200 applicants from all over the world, H-IQ was one of 12 finalists in December 2022. H-IQ is being used in pilot programs in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, North Carolina and New York. He is co-author, with Dr. Rex Jung and Ranee Flores, of A New Measure of Imagination Ability: Anatomical Brain Imaging Correlates, published March 22, 2016 in The Frontiers of Psychology, an international peer-reviewed journal. He’s served as managing director of the Boston Playwrights Theatre at Boston University, published numerous plays with Baker’s Plays, and has performed his one-man show ABC, NPR, BBC and CNN. Formerly executive director of the Massachusetts Advocates for the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities (MAASH) a statewide advocacy and education group, Hunter has 25 years’ experience in politics and arts advocacy. He served as Director of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs (a cabinet appointment requiring Senate confirmation). His most recent book, Atrophy, Apathy & Ambition,offers a layman’s investigation into artificial intelligence.