Navigation is one of the most complex things we do every day. It entails perception, memory, attention and planning, and it shapes how independently and confidently people move through the world. Our research follows three questions: how do people find their way, why do they differ so much in how well they do it, and how can we help people who get lost? We address them in five connected lines, from the general population to the clinic, with technology as a common thread.
Our approach
We work translationally. Fundamental questions about spatial cognition lead to clinical tools, and clinical observations raise new fundamental questions. We combine behavioural experiments, virtual and augmented reality, eye tracking, real world navigation tasks and large online and public samples, and we work closely with clinicians, designers, engineers, and people with lived experience.
1. Why people differ: individual differences in spatial cognition
Navigation ability varies enormously between people. We study how age, gender, experience and spatial anxiety relate to navigation, and how beliefs about one’s own ability, including stereotypes, relate to actual performance. Our national public experiment Navigeren kun je leren, organised for the Weekend of Science with NEMO Science Museum and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, provided data from 11,887 participants on navigation ability across the lifespan. These data now also serve as norms for clinical assessment. Related projects study how people explore new environments and how novelty affects memory, how people take another person’s perspective, and why some people confuse left and right.
Key questions
- How does navigation ability change across the lifespan, and which components are most sensitive to age and gender?
- How well do people judge their own spatial abilities, and what role do stereotypes play?
- Why do some people explore new environments more than others, and how does that shape what they learn?
Selected publications
Van der Ham, I.J.M., van der Kuil, M.N.A., Evers, A.W.M., & Claessen, M.H.G. (2020). Large-scale assessment of human navigation ability across the lifespan. Scientific Reports. DOI
Van der Ham, I.J.M., & Claessen, M.H.G. (2020). How age relates to spatial navigation performance: Functional and methodological considerations. Ageing Research Reviews. DOI
Van der Ham, I.J.M., & Koutzmpi, V. (2023). Stereotypes and self-reports about spatial cognition: Impact of gender and age. Current Psychology. DOI
Zheng, L., Genç, Z.N., Baumann, V., van der Ham, I.J.M., & Schomaker, J. (2025). Charting the unknown: Sex differences in spatial exploration across the lifespan. Human Nature. DOI
People and partners
Luming Zheng (PhD candidate), Judith Schomaker (Leiden University), Chiara Meneghetti and Francesca Pazzaglia (University of Padova), Francesco Ruotolo and Gennaro Ruggiero (Universitá della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Naples), NEMO Science Museum.
2. When a cognitive map does not form: atopia, DTD and aphantasia
Some people get lost frequently, throughout their lives, without any brain injury. Since Iaria and colleagues first described developmental topographical disorientation (DTD) in 2009, it has become clear that such lifelong navigation problems are more common than once thought, but also that the field does not yet agree on how to define them. Our systematic review in Neuropsychology Review (2025) set out where definitions diverge.
We use the term atopia for the symptom at the heart of many of these cases: the inability to form a usable cognitive map of the surroundings, while recognition of individual landmarks is intact or even better than average. Atopia is very common in DTD and one of its most important features. We study atopia together with aphantasia, the absence of visual imagery, as natural experiments that show what cognitive maps do for us. Through De Weg Kwijt, a national platform funded by the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA), we work directly with people who recognise themselves in atopia.
Key questions
- What exactly fails in atopia, and what remains intact?
- Is the quality of a cognitive map a trait that varies across the whole population?
- Does a cognitive map depend on visual imagery?
- What does living without a usable cognitive map mean for memory, thinking and daily life, and which strategies help people compensate?
Selected publications
Van der Ham, I.J.M., & Claessen, M.H.G. (2025). Always getting lost: Defining developmental topographical disorientation (DTD). A systematic literature review. Neuropsychology Review. DOI
Van der Ham, I.J.M., & Claessen, M.H.G. (2025). A case of developmental topographical disorientation: Impact on diagnostic trajectory and everyday life. Neurocase. DOI
Stöfsel, M.M., van Zandvoort, M.J.E., & van der Ham, I.J.M. (2026). Clarification of developmental topographical disorientation (DTD): Identification of a distinct navigation profile. In Spatial Cognition XIV. Springer. DOI
People and partners
Isabelle Kaiko, Judith Schomaker, Dietsje Jolles, Michiel Claessen and Sylvia van Beugen (Leiden University), Martine van Zandvoort (Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht), and the community of De Weg Kwijt.
3. Getting lost after brain injury: assessment and rehabilitation
Navigation problems are a common and disabling consequence of stroke and other acquired brain injury: around a third of people with a mild stroke report them. When this line of research started, clinicians had almost no standardised way to assess these complaints. Together with rehabilitation partners we developed the Wayfinding Questionnaire and the Leiden Navigation Test, with norms for age, gender and education, and established a classification that distinguishes several types of navigation impairment.
Building on this, the Leiden Navigation Training teaches compensatory navigation strategies through a serious game that people use at home, combined with guidance from a therapist. With funding from ZonMw, the training has been implemented at Basalt, UMC Utrecht and De Hoogstraat [confirm current status]. We also study navigation in other neurological conditions, such as multiple sclerosis.
Key questions
- Which components of navigation can be impaired after brain injury, and how can clinicians detect them reliably?
- Can people learn to compensate for navigation impairment, and how do we bring that training into everyday care?
Selected publications
Claessen, M.H.G., & van der Ham, I.J.M. (2017). Classification of navigation impairment: A systematic review of neuropsychological case studies. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. DOI
Claessen, M.H.G., Visser-Meily, J.M.A., Meilinger, T., Postma, A., de Rooij, N.K., & van der Ham, I.J.M. (2017). A systematic investigation of navigation impairment in chronic stroke patients: Evidence for three distinct types. Neuropsychologia. DOI
Van der Ham, I.J.M., & Claessen, M.H.G. (2022). A clinical guide to assessment of navigation impairment: Standardized subjective and objective instruments and normative data. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. DOI
Van der Kuil, M.N.A., Visser-Meily, J.M.A., Evers, A.W.M., & van der Ham, I.J.M. (2021). Navigation ability in patients with acquired brain injury: A population-wide online study. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation. DOI
People and partners
Michiel Claessen and Milan van der Kuil (Leiden University), Sanne Böing (UMC Utrecht), Teuni ten Brink and Anne Visser-Meily (UMC Utrecht and De Hoogstraat), Elbrich Jagersma and Jorit Meester, Basalt Rehabilitation Center.
4. Technology in neuropsychology
Virtual and augmented reality and serious games allow us to study and train cognition in environments that are realistic, controlled and engaging. We test how well virtual environments capture real navigation, how people perceive distance and time in virtual worlds, and what drives presence and cybersickness. We also use virtual experiences to change real behaviour, for example by altering perceived distance to support walking in patients, and we study how sound can support movement learning.
Because technology only helps if people use it, we investigate how patients and professionals accept digital rehabilitation. In education, we develop and test immersive environments for learning in three dimensions, from anatomy to spatial reasoning, partly in collaboration with TU Delft.
Key questions
- When does behaviour in a virtual environment tell us something valid about behaviour in the real world?
- How can immersive technology make assessment and training more effective and more accessible?
- How can three dimensional learning environments support students with different spatial abilities?
Selected publications
Van der Ham, I.J.M., Faber, A.M.E., Venselaar, M., van Kreveld, M.J., & Löffler, M. (2015). Ecological validity of virtual environments to assess human navigation ability. Frontiers in Psychology. DOI
Cuperus, A.A., Keizer, A., Evers, A.W.M., van den Houten, M.M.L., Teijink, J.A.W., & van der Ham, I.J.M. (2018). Manipulating spatial distance in virtual reality: Effects on treadmill walking performance in patients with intermittent claudication. Computers in Human Behavior. DOI
Van der Ham, I.J.M., van der Vaart, R., Miedema, A., Visser-Meily, J.M.A., & van der Kuil, M.N.A. (2020). Healthcare professionals’ acceptance of digital cognitive rehabilitation. Frontiers in Psychology. DOI
Coers, M., Petratza, M.M., Palumbo, A., Ruitenberg, M.F.L., van der Ham, I.J.M., & Schaefer, R.S. (2026). Movement sonification types and triggers: A systematic review. Perceptual and Motor Skills. DOI
People and partners
Celine van der Linden and Marijn Coers (PhD candidates), Anne Cuperus, Rebecca Schaefer, Marit Ruitenberg, Judith Schomaker and Angus Mol (Leiden University), Jos van der Hage (LUMC), Rafael Bidarra (TU Delft), Cinedans VR Lab.
5. People and places: navigation and the built environment
How easily people find their way depends not only on their abilities but also on the environment. As Medical Delta Professor in Healthy Society at TU Delft, Ineke van der Ham works with the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment on how the design of buildings and public spaces affects wayfinding and wellbeing, with a focus on settings where getting lost has real consequences, such as hospitals and care facilities. Related work examines how natural and urban environments help people feel restored, using virtual reality to compare environments under controlled conditions.
Key questions
- Which design features make buildings easier to navigate, for people with and without navigation problems?
- How do natural and urban environments affect recovery from stress and mental fatigue?
Selected publications
Brinkman, S., Van Doesum, N.J., & van der Ham, I.J.M. (2026). A tale of two different cities: Perceived restorativeness of natural vs. calm or busy urban environments. PsyEcology. DOI
People and partners
Suzanne Brinkman and Feras Alsaggaf (PhD candidates), Niels van Doesum (Leiden University), Machiel van Dorst and Michela Turrin, (Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft), Medical Delta.
Combining research lines
Each line strengthens the others. Large population studies define normal variation, which is what allows us to recognise impairment, both after brain injury and in atopia. Clinical groups and people with atopia show which components of navigation can fail independently, which refines theories of how navigation works. Our tools travel in both directions: tests developed for patients are used in population studies, and tasks developed for fundamental research become clinical instruments. Technology runs through all five lines, and public engagement brings in the large and diverse samples our questions require.
Methods
- Virtual and augmented reality, from desktop environments to immersive headsets
- Eye tracking during navigation
- Real world navigation tasks, including the walk through Space Maze we use at public events
- Large online studies with digital versions of our navigation tests
- Serious games for training, developed with game designers and engineers
- Standardised questionnaires on navigation, visual imagery and autobiographical memory
Funding
Our research is or has been funded by NWO (Veni, Meerwaarde, and the Dutch Research Agenda programme for science communication), ZonMw (Hoofdzaken Praktijkoplossingen), STW (Take off), Revalidatiefonds, Leiden University Fund, Virtutis Opus, Grassfields, EUniWell and Medical Delta.
Collaborations
Within Leiden University we work with colleagues in psychology, education and the medical sciences. Outside Leiden we collaborate with, among others, TU Delft, Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht, rehabilitation centres Basalt and De Hoogstraat, universities in Padova and Naples and Cinedans VR Lab.