TY - JOUR

T1 - Entropy of city street networks linked to future spatial navigation ability

AU - Coutrot, Antoine

AU - Manley, Ed

AU - Goodroe, Sarah

AU - Gahnstrom, Christoffer

AU - Filomena, Gabriele

AU - Yesiltepe, Demet

AU - Conroy-Dalton, Ruth

AU - Wiener, Jan M.

AU - Hölscher, Christian

AU - Hornberger, Michael

AU - Spiers, H. J.

N1 - The Author's Accepted Manuscript (the accepted version of the manuscript as submitted by the author) may only be posted 6 months after the paper is published, consistent with our self-archiving embargo. Please note that the Author’s Accepted Manuscript may not be released under a Creative Commons license. For Nature Research Terms of Reuse of archived manuscripts please see: http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/license.html#terms

PY - 2022/4/7

Y1 - 2022/4/7

N2 - The cultural and geographical properties of the environment have been shown to deeply influence cognition and mental health. Living near green spaces has been found to be strongly beneficial, and urban residence has been associated with a higher risk of some psychiatric disorders—although some studies suggest that dense socioeconomic networks found in larger cities provide a buffer against depression. However, how the environment in which one grew up affects later cognitive abilities remains poorly understood. Here we used a cognitive task embedded in a video game to measure non-verbal spatial navigation ability in 397,162 people from 38 countries across the world. Overall, we found that people who grew up outside cities were better at navigation. More specifically, people were better at navigating in environments that were topologically similar to where they grew up. Growing up in cities with a low street network entropy (for example, Chicago) led to better results at video game levels with a regular layout, whereas growing up outside cities or in cities with a higher street network entropy (for example, Prague) led to better results at more entropic video game levels. This provides evidence of the effect of the environment on human cognition on a global scale, and highlights the importance of urban design in human cognition and brain function.

AB - The cultural and geographical properties of the environment have been shown to deeply influence cognition and mental health. Living near green spaces has been found to be strongly beneficial, and urban residence has been associated with a higher risk of some psychiatric disorders—although some studies suggest that dense socioeconomic networks found in larger cities provide a buffer against depression. However, how the environment in which one grew up affects later cognitive abilities remains poorly understood. Here we used a cognitive task embedded in a video game to measure non-verbal spatial navigation ability in 397,162 people from 38 countries across the world. Overall, we found that people who grew up outside cities were better at navigation. More specifically, people were better at navigating in environments that were topologically similar to where they grew up. Growing up in cities with a low street network entropy (for example, Chicago) led to better results at video game levels with a regular layout, whereas growing up outside cities or in cities with a higher street network entropy (for example, Prague) led to better results at more entropic video game levels. This provides evidence of the effect of the environment on human cognition on a global scale, and highlights the importance of urban design in human cognition and brain function.

KW - navigation

KW - navigational strategies

KW - Street network configuration

U2 - 10.1038/s41586-022-04486-7

DO - 10.1038/s41586-022-04486-7

M3 - Journal article

VL - 604

SP - 104

EP - 110

JO - Nature

JF - Nature

SN - 0028-0836

IS - 7904

ER -