Suleiman Abahussein MSc Dissertation 2015/16

Effects of mobile devices on our abilities

Supervised by A.Sharkey

Abstract

The use of turn by turn navigation systems to find destinations reduces the ability of the user to build a cognitive map. However, the use of traditional methods, such as paper maps or spoken directions, allows the brain to build a cognitive map better. An experiment was conducted to test this theory by applying three conditions, GPS, paper maps and spoken directions, to measure the cognitive map in different situations. The experiment was held in two places, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Sheffield in the United Kingdom. 43 participants took part in both experiments, 32 in the Sheffield experiment, 14 females and 18 males, and 11 in the Riyadh experiment, all of them male. Most of the participants in both experiments were college student. Each participant was required to walk two routes with two different conditions and then to fill in a questionnaire and sketch map of the two routes. Each map was evaluated and given a score between 0 and 5.  It was found that the maps sketched by the participants who used GPS were of low accuracy and they experienced more difficulty compared to the participants who used the paper map and spoken directions, which means the participants who used GPS built the worst cognitive map.