Accuracy of Map-Building and Navigation by Humans during ‘Natural’ Exploration: Relative Roles of Magnetoreception and Vision

Abstract

Humans, in common with perhaps all vertebrates (Baker 1978, 1982, 1985c), organise their lives and movements within an area of familiarity. Each individual learns not only when and where to go to obtain this or that resource but also which routes are the most economical. Such behaviour is only possible if information concerning sites and routes is stored in the central nervous system, presumably as some form of ‘mental map’. Of course, at birth an individual has no familiar area and no mental map. Yet, eventually, its map may span up to thousands of square kilometres. Areas that were previously unfamiliar have become familiar, a process of familiarisation that relies primarily on ‘exploration’.