Gaze patterns in navigation: Encoding information in large-scale environments
Open accessAbstract
We investigated the role of gaze in encoding of object landmarks in navigation. Gaze behavior was measured while participants learnt to navigate in a virtual large-scale environment in order to understand the sampling strategies subjects use to select visual information during navigation. The results showed a consistent sampling pattern. Participants preferentially directed gaze at a subset of the available object landmarks with a preference for object landmarks at the end of hallways and T-junctions. In a subsequent test of knowledge of the environment, we removed landmarks depending on how frequently they had been viewed. Removal of infrequently viewed landmarks had little effect on performance, whereas removal of the most viewed landmarks impaired performance substantially. Thus, gaze location during learning reveals the information that is selectively encoded, and landmarks at choice points are selected in preference to less informative landmarks.
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Landmarks in the environment that are prioritized by a navigator's visual encoding strategies are directly related to their importance in the resulting spatial representation.
“Such navigation improvements occur alongside a fundamental shift in the dynamics of visual attention, where landmarks in the environment that are prioritized by a navigator’s visual encoding strategies are directly related to their importance in the resulting spatial representation (Hamid et al., 2010).”
From The influence of landmark visualization style on task performance, visual attention, and spatial learning in a real-world navigation task (2024) · cites this paper as Hamid et al., 2010
Successful navigation is predicted by the ability to attend to relevant landmarks.
“These results indicate that successful navigation is predicted by the ability to attend to relevant landmarks (Chrastil & Warren, 2012; Hamid et al., 2010) and align with previous findings showing that visually salient features improve participants’ spatial memory (Denis et al., 2014; Fine & Minnery, 2009; Keil et al., 2020).”
From The influence of landmark visualization style on task performance, visual attention, and spatial learning in a real-world navigation task (2024) · cites this paper as Hamid et al., 2010
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- Authors
- Hamid, S. N., Stankiewicz, B., & Hayhoe, M.
- Affiliations
- Wrexham University (GB)
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Vision
- Published
- 2010-10-22
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 28-28
- ISSN
- 1534-7362 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3094724
- OpenAlex
- W2061500142
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 3.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Vision (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative
- National Eye Institute (EY016089, R01-EY05729, R03EY016089, R01EY005729)
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Spatial Cognition and Navigation
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- gaze behavior, spatial navigation, virtual worlds, choice points, T-junction, large-scale environments, spatial memory
- MeSH terms
- Environment, Fixation, Ocular, Form Perception, Humans, Photic Stimulation, User-Computer Interface, Maze Learning
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