AUTHOR=Shafique Shehzaib , Setti Walter , Campus Claudio , Zanchi Silvia , Del Bue Alessio , Gori Monica TITLE=How path integration abilities of blind people change in different exploration conditions JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroscience VOLUME=18 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2024.1375225 DOI=10.3389/fnins.2024.1375225 ISSN=1662-453X ABSTRACT=

For animals to locate resources and stay safe, navigation is an essential cognitive skill. Blind people use different navigational strategies to encode the environment. Path integration significantly influences spatial navigation, which is the ongoing update of position and orientation during self-motion. This study examines two separate things: (i) how guided and non-guided strategies affect blind individuals in encoding and mentally representing a trajectory and (ii) the sensory preferences for potential navigational aids through questionnaire-based research. This study first highlights the significant role that the absence of vision plays in understanding body centered and proprioceptive cues. Furthermore, it also underscores the urgent need to develop navigation-assistive technologies customized to meet the specific needs of users.