I haven’t read the linked article, but I’ll say that I think spending a lot of time with maps (and yes GPSes) has solidified my particular style of mental mapping: I tend to order myself and my surrounding with respect to the cardinal directions, and create a fairly formal paper-map-like mental-map of the regions I live in. I don’t think it’s a smarter or stupider way of mapping my personal geography than a more relative approach. But it totally screwed up my first few months in Vancouver because back when I was only a visitor I had assigned my mental north to actual west, but only for downtown. It took me months until I wasnt’ all F’ed up whenever I tried to navigate across neighbourhoods.