Thursday, February 16, 2017

World’s best navigators mostly come from Nordic countries

World’s best navigators mostly come from Nordic countries




People from Finland have a particularly good sense of direction. That’s according to a study of 2.4 million people who downloaded a phone game designed to test people’s ability to find their way around. Out of the 193 countries where the game was downloaded, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark scored among the top six countries that did best at the game.

It was created to help researchers develop a test for Alzheimer’s disease, as one of the first symptoms of this condition is getting lost, says Hugo Spiers of University College London. “It’s seen as a memory condition but the first thing to go is loss of spatial orientation.”

So far the team have only tested the game on healthy volunteers. To try the game out on as many people as possible, they made a free phone version called Sea Hero Quest, which systematically tests people’s navigation abilities.


After setting off in a boat and making several twists and turns through icebergs, the player has to aim a flare back to their starting point, which they can no longer see.
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