Navigation Sense May be Linked to Genes
A new study, conducted by Laura Lakusta, an assistant professor of psychology at Montclair State University, Barbara Landau, Professor of Cognitive Science at the Johns Hopkins University, and Banchiamlack Dessalegn, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, suggests that differences in chromosome, the one associated with Williams syndrome, may be associated with having a sense of direction and/or understanding and storing geometry. Williams syndrome occurs in one in 7,500 people and results from the lack of a small amount of genetic material from one human chromosome. Individuals with the syndrome are good at language and are very social, but have “trouble with tasks like doing puzzles or copying patterns or navigating their bodies through the physical world.”
The researchers compared the results of tasks done by people with and without the syndrome. The task involved being shown where an object was hidden in one corner of a rectangular room with two long walls and two short ones. Those with the syndrome had no special insight into where to look for the object after closing their eye and “spinning around.” Those without the syndrome started their searches in the two possible corners that matched the geometry they’d seen.
The conclusion, as documented in the study abstract: “These results show that the geometric system used for reorientation in humans can be selectively damaged by specific genetic and neural abnormalities in humans.”
- MSNBC via a humble, anonymous reader
- abstract of “Impaired geometric reorientation caused by genetic defect” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
