When you go to the grocery store, how do you decide what path to take in order to get everything on your list without backtracking? Does space as we see it align with space as we remember it? How do spatial and mathematical reasoning interact? These are some of the questions that we are interested in studying at the University of San Diego Space Lab.

This is a comparative psychology lab, which means that we study learning and behavior across species – most often humans, rats, and zebrafish. In zebrafish, we look at the simple associative learning processes that zebrafish use to navigate to a goal. Rats are especially useful for looking at the neurobiological processes involved in spatial memory and planning. Finally, in humans we can see the sophisticated interplay between spatial navigation and visual perception.

Ongoing projects in the lab include experiments that use eyetracking and virtual reality to study how people perceive and use spatial information. We are interested in how this perception changes as people age, and how it may be affected by certain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Some of our studies can be completed online in just a few minutes – if you are interested in testing out your spatial cognition skills, follow the ‘Participate’ link to learn more!