The Key of the Maze: The role of mental imagery and cognitive flexibility in navigational planning

Bocchi, Alessia; Carrieri, Marika; Lancia, Stefania; Quaresima, Valentina; Piccardi, Laura

doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2017.05.009

Cited by 19 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Indeed, TP likely relies on the cooperation of several areas instead of a specific region, in line with recent neural models including travel planning (Martinet et al, 2011;Ekstrom et al, 2014;Spiers and Gilbert, 2015;Schacter et al, 2017). This is in line with the idea that TP is a complex ability requiring other cognitive processes, such as memory and mental imagery (Byrne et al, 2007;Schacter et al, 2007;Wolbers and Hegarty, 2010;Bocchi et al, 2017Bocchi et al, , 2019.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

“…Planning ability is fundamental for ensuring efficient spatial navigation and it can explain the wide individual differences frequently reported in spatial navigation, both in healthy (Wolbers and Hegarty, 2010;Sharma et al, 2016;Bocchi et al, 2017Bocchi et al, , 2019 and in clinical populations (Passini et al, 1995;Ciaramelli, 2008). Passini et al (1995) reported that patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's Disease failed in reaching a destination in the hospital and this was mainly due to their impaired planning ability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several studies suggested the existence of a specific planning ability devoted to solving navigational tasks (Basso et al, 2006;Cazzato et al, 2010;Martinet et al, 2011;Boccia et al, 2014a;Schacter et al, 2017). This ability has been called in several ways: visuospatial planning (VP; Basso et al, 2006;Cazzato et al, 2010), spatial navigational planning (Martinet et al, 2011;Schacter et al, 2017;Carrieri et al, 2018: Bocchi et al, 2017 or, even, travel planning (TP; Bocchi et al, 2019) that is the term we will adopt thereafter. Martinet et al (2011) defined TP as the mental evaluation of alternative action-sequences to infer optimal trajectories for reaching a goal, suggesting the dynamic nature of this kind of planning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Travel Planning Ability in Right Brain-Damaged Patients: Two Case Reports

Bocchi

Palmiero

Boccia

et al. 2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Planning ability is fundamental for goal-directed spatial navigation. Preliminary findings from patients and healthy individuals suggest that travel planning (TP)-namely, navigational planning-can be considered a distinct process from visuospatial planning (VP) ability. To shed light on this distinction, two right brain-damaged patients without hemineglect were compared with a control group on two tasks aimed at testing VP (i.e., Tower of London-16, ToL-16) and TP (i.e., Minefield Task, MFT). The former requires planning the moves to reach the right configuration of three colored beads on three pegs, whereas the latter was opportunely developed to assess TP in the navigational environment when obstacles are present. Specifically, the MFT requires participants to plan a route on a large carpet avoiding some hidden obstacles previously observed. Patient 1 showed lesions encompassing the temporoparietal region and the insula; she performed poorer than the control group on the ToL-16 but showed no deficit on the MFT. Conversely, Patient 2 showed lesions mainly located in the occipitoparietal network of spatial navigation; she performed worse than the control group on the MFT but not on the ToL-16. In both cases performances satisfied the criteria for a classical dissociation, meeting criteria for a double dissociation. These results support the idea that TP is a distinct ability and that it is dissociated from VP skills.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Travel Planning Ability in Right Brain-Damaged Patients: Two Case Reports

Bocchi

Palmiero

Boccia

et al. 2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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“…NTP was conceived to enhance the visuo-spatial abilities that underlie human navigation, such as mental rotation (Piccardi et al, 2017 ), visuo-spatial and navigational memory (Piccardi and Nori, 2011 ), navigational planning (Bocchi et al, 2017 ), spatial orientation, left and right discrimination and spatial representation of the body according to Siegel and White's hierarchical model. Each activity fosters a specific level of the acquisition of navigational knowledge, namely, landmark, route, and survey knowledge.…”

Section: Materials and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing Allocentric Spatial Recall in Pre-schoolers through Navigational Training Programme

et al. 2017

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Unlike for other abilities, children do not receive systematic spatial orientation training at school, even though navigational training during adulthood improves spatial skills. We investigated whether navigational training programme (NTP) improved spatial orientation skills in pre-schoolers. We administered 12-week NTP to seventeen 4- to 5-year-old children (training group, TG). The TG children and 17 age-matched children (control group, CG) who underwent standard didactics were tested twice before (T0) and after (T1) the NTP using tasks that tap into landmark, route and survey representations. We determined that the TG participants significantly improved their performances in the most demanding navigational task, which is the task that taps into survey representation. This improvement was significantly higher than that observed in the CG, suggesting that NTP fostered the acquisition of survey representation. Such representation is typically achieved by age seven. This finding suggests that NTP improves performance on higher-level navigational tasks in pre-schoolers.

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“…Action planning for the production of appropriate behavioral strategies is inherently associated with a wide range of cognitive processes known as executive functions. On a neuropsychological level, executive functions are mainly related to the neural activity of frontal lobe circuits and play an essential role in establishing sequences of actions directed toward a future goal (Bocchi et al 2017;Fuentes et al 2014). An important issue is the development of neuropsychological instruments that allow a valid and reliable evaluation of the action plan.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computer Maze–Solving Task: Preliminary Psychometric Evidence in Young Adult and Older Adult Sample

et al. 2020

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The maze-solving task is used extensively to evaluate several executive functions. The present study aimed to analyze the construct validity and the internal consistency of a new computer maze-solving task in a sample of young adults and older adults. The new software allows the resolution of 25 mazes (3 difficulty levels) on a touchscreen and registers four variables for analysis: visual analysis time, motor resolution time, number of dead-ends, and number of touches on the maze lines. The construct validity and internal consistency of the mazes were estimated for each group (young adult and older adult subjects) and for each dependent variable investigated. The construct validity was estimated through the item-total correlation and the power of discrimination between groups (young adults and older adults). Cronbach's alpha was estimated to confirm the internal consistency of the task. The results suggest that the computer maze-solving task is a viable and practical test to investigate various aspects related to cognition and motor skills in samples of different ages.

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The Key of the Maze: The role of mental imagery and cognitive flexibility in navigational planning

Cited by 19 publications

References 46 publications

Travel Planning Ability in Right Brain-Damaged Patients: Two Case Reports

Travel Planning Ability in Right Brain-Damaged Patients: Two Case Reports

Enhancing Allocentric Spatial Recall in Pre-schoolers through Navigational Training Programme

Computer Maze–Solving Task: Preliminary Psychometric Evidence in Young Adult and Older Adult Sample

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