Study title

The collection consists of demographic and quantitative data associated with ESRC award ES/P011632/1 (referred to as ExSpaND - Exploring SPAtial Naviational Difference). Typical participants (N=115) and patients with hydrocephalus (N=33) completed a battery of tasks that measured: navigational behaviour in real-world environments; behaviour in laboratory tasks designed to probe underlying components of navigation; and, standardised cognitive assessments. Specific details of individual measures are included in an accompanying Key document. Owing to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, some participants were tested in-person, and others remotely.Spatial navigation is a fundamental component of our daily lives, from retracing a familiar journey to work through to exploring a city that we are visiting for the first time. Effective navigation requires a complex synthesis of psychological abilities, including our perception of the environment, directing our attention to useful parts of it, and our ability to remember those features for future journeys. Because of this complexity, it is no surprise that people can experience difficulty with navigation, and this can take a great toll on quality of life, psychological well-being, and employability. Whilst many people experience difficulty at some point in their lives, such as old age or when receiving chemotherapy, other people experience lifelong impairments, and their needs are rarely recognised or met. In this project we will provide a full understanding of individual differences in navigational ability, in both typical adults and a vulnerable population. We will also test new methods to assist people experiencing difficulties with daily wayfinding. We will first recruit a representative sample of adults with Hydrocephalus, a common condition associated with an excess of fluid in the brain. This condition is anecdotally known to have a very large impact on navigational ability which, in turn, adversely affects the...