Mental walking through a complex maze influences lateralized ultradian rhythms

Subjects of two experimental groups, 10 males and 10 females in each group, explored artificial environments represented by compact city mazes. The mazes, a simple and a complex one, were generated by means of a computer program. After turning the program on, a scene with houses, streets, and alleys appeared on a TV screen. The subjects sat in front of the screen and manoeuvered through the simple or the complex maze with the help of a hand-operated device. Correspondingly the street scenes changed in such a way that the subject had the illusion of a normal pace. Each subject explored one maze for eight hours. Every 15 min. an experimenter interrupted the subject's walk and measured tactile discrimination in either hand. Ultradian periodic variations in the tactile error rate of the right and left hands with periods of 2 or 3 hours are found. They are considered manifestations of endogenous rhythms operating separately in the left and right cerebral hemispheres. As demonstrated in a previous paper, lateralized ultradian rhythms in tactile discrimination are different for males and females when tested under quiet laboratory conditions. The present paper shows that the rhythms are specifically influenced in both sexes by the spatial complexity of an artificial environment (maze). These findings are discussed from an evolutionary point of view.