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Mental Map

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Stephanie
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Landmarks provide information about your location and the direction you are headed in. To use landmark information successfully you need to create a mental map of a scene and remember the relative locations of important objects. You must also be able to mentally manipulate this mental map so that you will not get lost if you enter the scene from a different direction.

In Mental Map, one of BrainHQ’s Navigation exercises, you have to remember the relative location of objects in a grid and then reconstruct the grid from memory after it has been rotated, flipped, or translated (moved up, down, right, or left).

Here’s how the exercise works:

  1. A three by three grid will appear, and within the grid some images will appear. Notice how the images are spatially related to one another. Select “Next” when you’re ready to continue.
    A screenshot from Mental Map. Centered in the window is a dark, three by three grid. The middle of the grid has an icon of a picnic table and a large tree. In the bottom right corner of the grid is another icon with two vehicles. To the right of the grid is a large, dark button that reads Next.
  2. The images on the grid will disappear, and then some (not all) of the images will reappear. The grid will then either rotate, flip, or move in some way.
    An animation from Mental Map. A cursor selects the Next button to the right of the three by three grid. The picnic icon in the middle and the vehicle icon in the bottom right of the grid disappear. After a moment the vehicle icon reappears, and then the whole grid rotates ninety degrees counterclockwise.
  3. When the grid stops moving, the missing image will appear to the right. Drag and drop this image to the correct space on the grid.
    An animation from Mental Map. The picnic icon is shown separately, to the right of the rotated three by three grid. A mouse cursor clicks and drags the picnic icon to the center space of the grid.

If an incorrect answer is given, you’ll hear a “bonk” sound and a second grid will appear and display the correct answer. In following turns, the grid may not move around as much.  An example of an incorrect answer is shown below:

An animation from a trial of Mental Map. Two icons are shown on a three by three grid. In the top left is a no smoking icon. In the top middle is an icon of a bed. To the right is a large, dark button that reads Next. A mouse cursor appears and selects the Next button. The icons on the grid disappear, and then the the bed icon reappears. The whole grid then rotates ninety degrees counterclockwise, and the bed icon then shifts to the adjacent diagonal space to the top. The no smoking icon appears to the right of the grid, and a mouse cursor drags the icon to the incorrect space within the grid. A second grid appears revealing how the icons in the first grid had been rotated and translated.

If a correct answer is given, you’ll hear a “boop” sound and in following turns the grid may move around in more ways. In both cases, the level then continues, repeating from Step 1 above.

You can review the exercise video tutorial here:

Mental Map from BrainHQ from Posit Science on Vimeo.

As you progress through Mental Map, it becomes more challenging in these ways:

  • The grid movements become more complex
  • More objects are presented in the grid
  • More variations of object orientation within the grid are added
  • Different object sets are used

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