中国科学院心理研究所机构知识库

Even though individual difference of navigation performance was found in driving studies at behavioral level, few studies explored the cognitive mechanism of this individual difference at neurological level with ERP (Event-related Potential) technique. To address this important question in research, this study recruited two groups of navigators with good and poor navigation performance in a driving task and measured their P300 amplitude when two types of triggers were presented to subjects (intersection and street sign). It was found that poor navigators showed larger amplitude than good navigators on the left hemisphere, the right hemisphere, the temporal and the parietal and the occipital sites when intersections triggers were presented, and on the occipital site when street sign triggers were presented, reflecting different levels of mental resource needed to process in the spatial information between these two groups. Future research and application of the current finding in intelligent transportation system was also discussed.