Some original work with voles etc showed that females used waypointing, making
local differences and as such a wide path for mapping. males, on the other hand, used vectoring, noticing universals
such as light angle, 'south ,north' etc etc
Additional work, such as that of the taxi drivers, has refined these distinctions in that local dynamics can favour
a waypointing perspective over having to stop the taxi etc to read a map/GPS position etc. In other words the universal
perspective is more precise but also requires more energy to process due to its rigidity, it is over-precise in
the context of taxi driving etc and we automatically fall-back on the more local, approximates perspective. (there
is the implication here that males make univeral, and so static, unchanging, eternal, maps, whereas females make
more local, more dynamic, changing, maps. For our species we 'transcend' gender to a degree where we can educate
either gender in the ways of the different methods and let context decide which to use)
The waypointing method is quickier if a little 'cheaper' in precision; waypointing is more dynamic and easier to
use when 'on the move', as the taxi-drivers learn where given different traffic conditions they need to quickly
adjust to LOCAL alternative routes etc (and so it is 'algorithmic' but lacking in precision, it is not 'latitude
X, long Y' as compared to 'up the windor road to the pub on the left, go right to the orange lampost, turn left
to the post box on the right....') Problems come when the local council has re-painted the lampost green and/or
moved the post box across the road. Vectoring does not have this problem.
Overall these works demonstrate properties of the brain in that the more 'precise' you want to be, as in discreteness,
point-on-surface-of-the-planet identification, so the more 'left brained' you become in that the focus is on a
single, universal, context. The precision focus is where, in a dynamic universe, we need to 'pin down' the 'point'
- hold it static, make it 'eternal'. To do that you need to recruit universal constants, link to those constants,
from the context. The more approximates you are so the more 'local' these universals as in 'pub on the left' etc
and as such the path is derived by local relationships, and to 'see' the path is done by implication in the relationships
of local context to the path.
As you become more precise so the 'universals' become more universal i.e. not going to change in the lifetime of
the universe you are working with. Thus 'north' is always 'north' and at the top of the map through standardisations
- another example of the use of universal perspectives over local.
the vectoring acts to draw a very fine line that is the path to follow regardless of the local context - you do
not need to look away from the path to identify the path as you do in waypointing (iow IMPLICIT mapping), you just
follow the path mapped-out by GPS etc etc (iow EXPLICIT mapping but as an overlay on local conditions) Now the
fact that this could lead you into a brick wall due to the local council building a bypass and putting-up houses
etc where there used to be a road can be a problem! ;-)
The overall focus from a brain perspective is on precision. The 'dot' size moves from one that is the size of the
local context (and so mapping is done by implications) to one that that is truely dimensionless in the context,
precise, clear, absolute (explicit).
The more 'right brained' so the more dependent on local context to connect dots to imply something. This perspective
is dynamic, approximations oriented, focus on pattern matching to 'mean' something, when compared to the perspective
of the more 'left brained' that is almost self-referencing, autonomous and so 'self-contained'. This is VERY precise
but to a degree of being OVER-precise in everyday living. The 'right' uses a pinch of salt in cooking, the 'left'
gets into the number and weight of the grains!
As such the differences are on a 'dot' perspective that is static or a 'field' perspective that is dynamic. See
my concept of the "Dimension of Precision" in the IDM material {this 'left/right' also gets into the
differences between hunters (wide ranging so need to focus on stars etc as constants) and gatherers (local range
and so more focused on local landmarks etc. Overall the left seems to have emergered from the right.)}
We can see this precise/approximate focus in all of our maps. E.g. the right is more 'geometric' in perspective,
the left more 'algebraic', and so a focus on dimensions gives way to the dimensionless. This takes us into high
precision where we move into holograms and phase space mappings etc. Thus the 'left' can be VERY clear, very precise,
but also too rigid and so misses local nuances, local relational dynamics ('females' do well in this relational
area, as they do well in pattern matching, statistics, shape shifting (fashion, cosmetics etc blending-in or sticking-out
but with quality - male dress sense can be a little 'childlike' at times, uncoordinated - reflecting a more 'left
brained' perspective!) etc etc
Thus the left brained perspective is more 'discrete' but also more prone to recruitment of univeral universals
(north, south, sun, moon etc) rather than local universals (pub, lampost). the recruitment of the more universal
universals reduces dynamics to a degree - as long as I keep the sun on the left I am fine. Go local in the form
of waypointing and I spend my time ticking-off local landmarks to do basically the same thing as 'keep the sun
on the left' or 'head north' etc. etc. Armed with a GPS and I can be very universal but also very precise... until
I need to find ' the red house on the left with the party sign on the gate'!
The more right brained so the more into integrations (focus on BETWEEN) and GENERAL differentiations. The overall
focus is on strong use of coordinates. The more left so the more we reduce this to 'points', to universal objects,
we isolate and focus on integrations WITHIN what has been isolated.
The dynamic, everyday of the universe is more 'right brained', "AS IS" reality. Move more left and it
all becomes "AS INTERPRETED" and so can be too precise at times but this also gives us leverage in dominating
the planet etc.
We share these characteristics with all other neuron-dependent lifeforms such that, the little zebra fish has a
brain that focuses on "KNOWN" processing on the left (IOW 'dot' precision) and "UNKNOWN" processing
on the right (IOW 'field' precision, approximations etc) Our brains do exactly the same thing but in a more 'refined'
manner! ;-)
All of this also gets into language usage etc where the more approximates in thinking style so the more use of
language to describe things by implications - the 'lack' of 'point' precision and so YES/NO perspective means an
increase in 'moving around the point' to make the point by implications etc (gossip, court politics etc). Older
esoteric-sourced maps reflect this use of connecting the dots to imply something (e.g. Astrology charts, Tarot
card spreads etc etc)
This implicit form of precision is just as 'attractive' as the point form such that one can 'get off' on both methods
alone, talking about the precision of your car engine is just as 'fun' as general social 'gossip' where the focus,
the 'fun', is on generating implications etc which are just as 'precise' as car engine numbers! (and so one form
can be very irritating to those in favour of the other form! The idea therefore is to appreciate all forms and
fit form to context ;-) - or just change your context! )
If you focus on the precision issue overall what pops out is the nature of the neuron repeated all the way 'up'
from dendritic/axonic perspectives (discrete,FM vs continuuous, AM) to lobes (e.g. temporal vs parietal) to hemispheres
(left (FM)bias)vs right (AM) bias) to collectives in the species etc.
These are all GENERAL where genetic diversity allows for 'differences' in all of this 'sameness'.
The references to original work focus upon such articles as:
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2000 Apr 11;97(8):4398-403
Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers.
Maguire EA, Gadian DG, Johnsrude IS, Good CD, Ashburner J, Frackowiak RS, Frith CD.
Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Institute of Neurology, University College London, Queen Square, London
WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom. e.maguire@fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk
Structural MRIs of the brains of humans with extensive navigation experience, licensed London taxi drivers, were
analyzed and compared with those of control subjects who did not drive taxis. The posterior hippocampi of taxi
drivers were significantly larger relative to those of control subjects. A more anterior hippocampal region was
larger in control subjects than in taxi drivers. Hippocampal volume correlated with the amount of time spent as
a taxi driver (positively in the posterior and negatively in the anterior hippocampus). These data are in accordance
with the idea that the posterior hippocampus stores a spatial representation of the environment and can expand
regionally to accommodate elaboration of this representation in people with a high dependence on navigational skills.
It seems that there is a capacity for local plastic change in the structure of the healthy adult human brain in
response to environmental demands.
=========================
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2001 Jun 5;98(12):6941-4
A larger hippocampus is associated with longer-lasting spatial memory.
Biegler R, McGregor A, Krebs JR, Healy SD.
Institute of Cell, Animal, and Population Biology, King's Buildings, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road,
Edinburgh EH9 3JT, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Volumetric studies in a range of animals (London taxi-drivers, polygynous male voles, nest-parasitic female cowbirds,
and a number of food-storing birds) have shown that the size of the hippocampus, a brain region essential to learning
and memory, is correlated with tasks involving an extra demand for spatial learning and memory. In this paper,
we report the quantitative advantage that food storers gain from such an enlargement. Coal tits (Parus ater) a
food-storing species, performed better than great tits (Parus major), a nonstoring species, on a task that assessed
memory persistence but not on a task that assessed memory resolution or on one that tested memory capacity. These
results show that the advantage to the food-storing species associated with an enlarged hippocampus is one of memory
persistence.
==========================
The overall the focus is on precision. The more precise you want to be the more 'left' brained you become the more
you recruit universal constants to make your maps BUT in a dynamic, local context, it is easier to use 'waypoint'
mapping rather than 'vectoring' where the latter gets into GPS (global positioning satellites) and position of
Sun, etc and the former works off "red mail box on the left", "pub on the right", "3rd
pair of traffic lights" etc etc etc
Disadvantage of the waypointing is that the width of the path is wide, needs to include all of the waypoints. Advantage
is if the whole area gets rotated by an earthquake you can still make-out the map.
Disadvantage of vectoring is that it is so precise it works like an overlay and 'draws' a very fine line on the
map of the area and you do not need to 'look up' to follow the path and as such, if an earthquake 'rotates' the
area so the path is lost since it has been fixed by non-local processes (GPS etc)
The hippocampus involvement is in the 'joining of the dots'. This is related to such primitive concepts as territorial
mapping as well as such 'advanced' concepts as syntax processing in language and such abstract concepts as the
'search for truth' where the feeling of 'truth', the sense of 'rightness' stems from our territorial marking and
so a sense of 'ownership'.