Spatial knowledge acquisition from maps and from navigation in real and virtual environments
Open accessAbstract
In this study, the nature of the spatial representations of an environment acquired from maps, navigation, and virtual environments (VEs) was assessed. Participants first learned the layout of a simple desktop VE and then were tested in that environment. Then, participants learned two floors of a complex building in one of three learning conditions: from a map, from direct experience, or by traversing through a virtual rendition of the building. VE learners showed the poorest learning of the complex environment overall, and the results suggest that VE learners are particularly susceptible to disorientation after rotation. However, all the conditions showed similar levels of performance in learning the layout of landmarks on a single floor. Consistent with previous research, an alignment effect was present for map learners, suggesting that they had formed an orientation-specific representation of the environment. VE learners also showed a preferred orientation, as defined by their initial orientation when learning the environment. Learning the initial simple VE was highly predictive of learning a real environment, suggesting that similar cognitive mechanisms are involved in the two learning situations.
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The translation estimation from traveled path distance to straight-line distance might have added distance errors to participants' distance estimation performance.
“We asked participants to estimate the straight-line distance between landmarks, which is computed from the traveled path distance, and this translation estimation might have added distance errors to participants’ distance estimation performance (Richardson et al., 1999).”
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 Richardson et al., 1999
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- Authors
- Richardson, A. E., Montello, D. R., & Hegarty, M.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
- Corresponding author
- Richardson, Anthony E.
- ORCID
- Hegarty, Mary
- Venue
- Memory & Cognition
- Published
- 1999-07
- Volume
- 27
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 741-750
- ISSN
- 0090-502X (ISSN-L)
- 1532-5946
- OpenAlex
- W2130102713
- Cited by
- 570
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 31 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 29 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 26
- FWCI
- 28.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Memory & Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Spatial Cognition and Navigation
- Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Geography Education and Pedagogy
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- spatial knowledge acquisition, maps, virtual worlds, spatial learning, disorientation, rotation, alignment effect, crystallographic texture, landmark learning, building layout, cognitive maps
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Cognition, Computer Simulation, Distance Perception, Female, Humans, Learning, Male, Maps as Topic, Middle Aged, Orientation, Space Perception
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