Spatial skills
Someone is taking about 50 attempts to reverse his car into a parking space. Does the driver lack spatial skills?
Not unlikely. Spatial cognition is very important to individuals. Without this ability it is impossible to judge whether your car will fit between the bollard and your neighbour’s car. And we would forever be searching for our keys or glasses. We would be lost on our way to a friend’s new house, even despite her clear instructions. In our lab, we study how healthy participants, as well as patients with brain damage, make spatial decisions. Both in the digital world, as presented on computer screens, and in the real world. We analyse, among other things, response times and error patterns. We also use a brain scanner to measure which brain processes are involved in spatial reasoning, perception and memory. In the future, we hope that our research will provide answers to various compelling questions. For instance whether visual information is indispensable and infallible. Or whether blind individuals can also gather complete and adequate information about the world around them. And what about navigation aids: does your satnav influence the spatial centres of your brain?