How to update your heading and position during driving?

During locomotion, to estimate one’s position and directional heading, individuals can either use cues generated by self-movement (path integration system, i.e. inertial cues and optic flow) or visual landmarks (piloting system). Previous studies have shown that in rats, if a visual landmark rotate 90°, their directional tuning curves of heading directional cells, their place fields of place cells and firing patterns of grid cells have similar angular shifts. In the current project, we asked people to drive in a large city (optic flow and piloting cues are available). We then used a behavioral method to estimate their position and heading respectively from their pointing responses. In addition, we dissociate the heading piloting cues (skybox) and positional piloting cues (proximal landmarks). The results showed the positional piloting cues dominate humans’ position estimations, but optic flows dominate heading estimations. The heading piloting cues can determine heading estimations, but their position estimation seems not to be influenced by either. Together these experiments suggest that during driving, updating heading is online and automatic whereas updating position is offline and needs more calculation.