Animal and Human Navigation 

SPARK Workshop: Over 4 lectures, combined with “hands on” laboratory tasks, Professor Basil introduced students to Animal and Human Navigation. After a brief lecture on what navigation is and what is required (a map and a compass), students participated in a hands-on exercise: each student was asked to “draw a map or list a series of instructions” that would guide someone from their home to Brooklyn College. This is the first time many of the students had thought about how they “think about space”.  Each student then presented their “map” to the rest of the class, and explained what cues they used to “navigate” to Brooklyn College. In the process of performing this exercise, students discovered the utility of 1) landmarks, 2) dead reckoning, 3) beacon homing, 4) route reversal, 5) an internal time sense and many other “components of representations of space”.  They also came to realize that everyone “maps space” somewhat differently.

      Once students had a grasp of navigation and different navigational strategies, Dr. Basil proceded with a ½ h Power Point presentation (with images and video), giving an overview of the diversity of animals and their navigational strategies. This was followed by an introduction to the methods scientists use to “get inside an animal’s brain” to determine how they map space (altering internal clocks, altering magnetic fields, altering celestial cues, etc).  Students learned how to 1) develop models to test hypotheses and 2) examine the decision-making processes of different animals that use sensory information very different from our own.

      The last ½ h of class was spent in a “hands on” experiment of “human dead reckoning”. One student at a time was blindfolded and led in a circuitous path from one point in space to another in the laboratory room. At first no “cues” were available to the blindfoldee (objects to touch, sounds from the other students, etc). At the ending position, with the blindfold still on, the student would be asked to point in the direction of their start position. Then they would remove the blindfold to see if they were accurate or were off by a few degrees. As each student proceeded with dead reckoning, it became clear that each student has their own internal “error” in dead reckoning ability. When cues were added, like sound or tactile cues, the error decreased.

      Thus by using the students as “subjects” themselves, they learned what animals must experience when navigating in a new environment, and having to find their way home afterward.