One study found that people who live in rural areas have a better sense of direction and navigational skills than those living in cities or urban areas.

This study has been conducted by a group of researchers from the University College London (UCL), the University of Lyon, and the University of East Anglia (UEA) to dig deeper into the correlation between the quality of navigational skills to the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

Our game @seaheroquest has helped distinguish people who grew up in rural areas have better spatial navigation skills than those from cities. The game is a great example of how participation in research can help get us closer to breakthroughs.

Read more?https://t.co/mxgRgMAgzA

— AlzheimersResearchUK ? (@AlzResearchUK) March 31, 2022

The study, published in the scientific journal Nature, involved nearly 400,00 participants from 39 countries who played the Sea Hero Quest mobile game to learn more about people’s navigational skills. Deutsche Telekom collaborated with Alzheimer’s Research UK, UCL, UEA, and game developers Glitchers to create the game in 2016, with over four million players.

The “Sea Hero Quest” game consists of a wayfinding task that requires players to navigate a boat to find checkpoints on a map.

The researchers discovered that people who grew up in cities with grid street layouts performed slightly better when navigating street patterns with similar patterns. They also found that, despite their lower performance, their childhood environments impacted their navigation ability and styles.

Short ? on our new @nature article with #SeaHeroQuest@antoine_coutrot et al
Entropy of city street networks linked to future spatial navigation ability

Video: footage from two game levels with different levels of entropy in the paths (L: high, R: low)https://t.co/jlu4P5dO3N pic.twitter.com/V2cazmPWMg

— Prof Hugo Spiers (@hugospiers) March 31, 2022

“We found that growing up outside of cities appears to be good for the development of navigational abilities, and this seems to be influenced by the lack of complexity of many street networks in cities,” Lead researcher professor Hugo Spiers from UCL Psychology and Language Sciences said.

Co-lead author Dr. Antoine Cuotrot from CNRS, University of Lyon, said that individuals who were raised in rural areas scored better since the countryside has a more complex environment that consists of multiple routes and landmarks to keep in mind. It means that people have to memorize their surroundings throughout their journey.

However, people who live in Chicago and New York with orderly-grid street layouts performed less better than those who live in much more complex cities like Paris and Prague, which have less-ordered street layouts.

The researchers also developed “City Hero Quests,” a city-themed version of the game, to see how people from cities could more effectively navigate city environments.

The Sea Hero Quest Project was designed to aid Alzheimer’sAlzheimer’s research by studying people’s spatial navigational abilities, as spatial navigation deficiency is a critical symptom in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Source: https://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/research/for-researchers/resources-and-information/sea-hero-quest/, https://www.alzheimersresearchuk.org/growing-up-in-rural-or-suburban-areas-improves-spatial-navigation/