Learning ‘The Knowledge’: How London Taxi Drivers Build Their Cognitive Map of London

Abstract

Licenced London taxi drivers have been found to show changes in the grey matter density of their hippocampus over the course of training and decades of navigation in London (UK). This has been linked to their learning and using of the ‘Knowledge of London’, the names and layout of over 26,000 streets and thousands of points of interest in London. Here we examined the process of how this knowledge is acquired and we detail key steps that include: systematic study of maps, travel on selected overlapping routes, the mental visualisation of places and the optimal use of subgoals. We provide the first map of the street network covered by the routes used to learn, allowing insight into where gaps in the network exist. The methods could be widely applied to aid spatial learning in the general population and may provide insights for artificial intelligence (AI) systems to efficiently learn new environments.