Do Humans Integrate Routes Into a Cognitive Map? Map- Versus Landmark-Based Navigation of Novel Shortcuts.

Abstract

Do humans integrate experience on specific routes into metric survey knowledge of the environment, or do they depend on a simpler strategy of landmark navigation? The authors tested this question using a novel shortcut paradigm during walking in a virtual environment. The authors find that participants could not take successful shortcuts in a desert world but could do so with dispersed landmarks in a forest. On catch trials, participants were drawn toward the displaced landmarks whether the landmarks were clustered near the target location or along the shortcut route. However, when landmarks appeared unreliable, participants fell back on coarse survey knowledge. Like honeybees (F. C. Dyer, 1991), humans do not appear to derive accurate cognitive maps from path integration to guide navigation but, instead, depend on landmarks when they are available.

For Efficient Navigational Search, Humans Require Full Physical Movement, but Not a Rich Visual Scene

“…Studies using virtual environments (VEs) show humans rely on landmarks when they are available (Foo, Warren, Duchon, & Tarr, 2005) and, in rich visual scenes, basic spatial tasks such as path integration may be accurately performed even if no body-based information is provided (Riecke, van Veen, & Bülthoff, 2002). However, visual information alone is not sufficient for cognitively demanding tasks such as learning the layout of a building, as witnessed by the difficulty participants frequently have navigating VEs displayed on a desktop monitor (Ruddle, 2001).…”

Environmental stability modulates the role of path integration in human navigation

“…Covertly shifting a visual beacon not only captures an animal's homing behavior, but also induces a corresponding shift in the spatial tuning of underlying neural mechanisms (e.g., place cells, head direction cells, and grid cells; Hafting et al, 2005;Knierim, Kudrimoti, & McNaughton, 1998;Taube et al, 1990). Human navigation similarly exhibits landmark capture, such that visual landmarks completely dominate the homing direction with landmark shifts as large as 90°, whereas 115° shifts are rejected (Zhao & Warren, 2015; see also Foo et al, 2005). Landmark capture may result from navigators' prior experience in a largely stable environment, which leads a navigator to expect that landmarks remain stable during navigation.…”

“…Participants could base this homing response on either path integration alone, visual landmarks alone, or both. To probe the state of path integration, we used a catch trial paradigm, in which the landmarks were manipulated on catch trials that occurred amidst a series of standard trials (Foo et al, 2005;Shettleworth & Sutton, 2005). To provide a baseline for a normally functioning path integration Page 11 of 48 system, we also tested a final set of baseline trials with no visual landmarks, so participants were forced to rely on path integration alone to perform the task.…”

Understanding site selection of illegal border crossings into a fenced protected area: a rational choice approach

“…Poachers may overcome this by using large landmarks as a navigational guide. Landmarks can serve either as beacons at a target location or mark paths along the way (Foo et al 2005). Examples of landmarks that poachers may use are power lines, radio towers, or tall factory chimneys.…”