Imagine being dropped into a virtual arena. Your mission? To hunt down a fast-moving target with a teammate without being able to talk to each other. You’ve got one minute. Go.
That’s the challenge I gave participants in my project, which used the video game Minecraft to explore how we navigate the world with others.
But this wasn’t about gaming. It was about answering a much bigger question: How do humans coordinate with each other to navigate towards a moving target?
🧠Why Navigation Matters (Even If You’re Not a Hunter)
Navigation is a skill most of us take for granted — whether we’re finding the quickest route to work, chasing after a runaway pet, or trying to find something in a supermarket.
But in evolutionary terms, our ancestors relied on tracking and catching moving targets to survive. And while most of us aren’t out spearing gazelle anymore, the brain systems that evolved for those hunts are still key to navigating a complex world.
Problems with spatial navigation can also be an early sign of diseases like Alzheimer’s. So studying how we find and follow goals — especially when they move — could have huge implications for understanding memory, planning, and brain health.
🕹️From the Savannah to the Screen
Scientists have learned a lot about how the brain tracks stationary goals, like a hidden object or a fixed destination. Brain areas like the hippocampus help us build ‘mental maps’ of our surroundings, while the prefrontal cortex handles planning and decision-making along the way.
But, in real life, our goals don’t always stay still. Whether it’s a toddler running off or a dog chasing a squirrel, we often have to track moving things.
That’s a much harder problem. Now the brain has to predict, not just plan. It has to make rapid updates, adjust strategies on the fly, and — if we’re working in a team — coordinate with others.
Most lab-based navigation experiments don’t capture that complexity. They often involve following dots on a screen, or moving toward fixed points. That’s a far cry from what a real hunt looks like.
So, I built something more realistic: a virtual group hunting task in Minecraft. In this digital arena, players (acting as predators) had to work with a teammate to track and catch moving prey. It was fast-paced, unpredictable, and required the kind of thinking real-world navigation demands.
🏃♂️How the Hunt Worked
Players worked in pairs: one was a real participant, and the other a trained helper (confederate). Their job? Team up to catch a speedy prey character before time ran out.
We added obstacles like boulders and sand that slowed players down to make the task more strategic. Players had to think ahead: Should I take a shortcut? Try to cut the prey off? Stick with my partner or split up?
Each team did 20 trials. In some, they had to hunt the prey. In others, they just had to follow it as closely as possible — a kind of ‘control’ condition.
We then analysed every second of their movements to understand what made hunts successful.
📊Results
✅In successful hunts, players weren’t just reactively running after the prey. They planned ahead, adapted to the terrain, and moved in sync with their teammate.
❌However, when predators were out of sync — making erratic or conflicting moves — hunts took longer or failed. These players often got stuck behind obstacles, lost track of each other, or followed the prey too reactively rather than strategically.
We also examined the intersection angle between both predators and the prey — like how wolves might position themselves when surrounding a target.
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✅When the angle was small and stable, both predators were approaching from similar directions and could corner the prey more easily.
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❌When the angle fluctuated wildly, coordination broke down and success rates dropped.
🤝Closer = Better?
We also tested whether distance between teammates made a difference. Initially, we assumed more space would allow players to spread out, cover more ground, and maybe trap the prey more efficiently.
But the opposite was true: teams that stayed closer together were more likely to succeed. Without any way to talk or coordinate explicitly, players seemed to rely on staying within each other’s field of view — like flanking or shadowing a teammate’s movement.
This mirrors real-world animal hunts, where close physical proximity helps groups move as a unit. Whether it’s baboons, orcas, or even human team sports, staying connected often leads to better outcomes.
⏰Concentration Matters!
One surprising twist? Players got worse at the task over time. Instead of improving with practice, they seemed to lose focus — possibly due to fatigue or zoning out. This suggests that maintaining attention and engagement matters, even in game-based tasks.
💡So What Does This All Mean?
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🧭Humans use flexible, strategic navigation — not just chasing, but planning and anticipating where a moving target might go next.
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🤝Coordination without communication is possible — but tricky. Synchronised movement helps, especially in unpredictable environments.
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⚠️Like any early-stage study, there were a few limitations. In the ‘follow’ trials, players often lost track of the prey — suggesting the control task could be improved. And since attention dropped over time, even in an immersive setting, that’s something future designs will need to consider.
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🧬These kinds of tasks could be used in clinical settings, especially helping to identify or support people at risk of conditions like Alzheimer’s (where spatial planning abilities tend to deteriorate early).
🧪What’s Next?
This was just the beginning. The goal was to test whether the Minecraft hunting task worked — whether it pushed people to use the brain processes we care about.
Now that we’ve shown it does, the next step is to combine it with brain scanning (like fMRI) to see which parts of the brain are doing what during these virtual hunts.
A crucial part of our evolution as a species involves our ability to hunt, plan, and move together. Whether it’s in the wild or on a screen, those instincts still shape how we navigate space — and each other.
🔗References & Further Reading
- Yoo, S. B. M., Tu, J. C., Piantadosi, S. T., & Hayden, B. Y. (2021). A neural circuit for computing escape decisions during predator-prey interactions. Nature, 593(7859), 424–428. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03969-2
- A cutting-edge study showing how animals track and respond to moving targets — one of the inspirations for our task.
- King, A. J., Sueur, C., Huchard, E., & Cowlishaw, G. (2008). Wild baboons coordinate group movements using shared decision-making. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 275(1640), 1651–1656. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.0419
- Evidence of non-verbal, coordinated hunting in the wild, which our virtual task aimed to replicate.
- Mojang Studios. (n.d.). Minecraft Education Edition.Microsoft. https://education.minecraft.net/
- A version of Minecraft used by educators and researchers to explore problem-solving, learning, and now… navigation!
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