Place Learning in Virtual Space I: Acquisition, Overshadowing, and Transfer

Human place learning in a virtual Morris water task: some important constraints on the flexibility of place navigation

“…He repeatedly released rats from a single, fixed release point in the MWT and coined the term 'instantaneous transfer' to describe the animals' near perfect performance when started from a novel location. Subsequently, Jacobs et al [11] reported a similar result in human virtual place learning. One interpretation of the instantaneous transfer phenomenon is that subjects form a cognitive map during initial training from which novel trajectories to the goal could be computed without requisite, additional learning processes.…”

“…Some authors have suggested that these cognitive mapping principles also operate in virtual space [11,12,15], citing evidence such as the control of place navigation by distal cues and intact place navigation following the removal of a subset of distal cues. Although important, these data offer only weak support for cognitive mapping theory.…”

“…Although there are obvious differences between realworld and virtual navigation, such as the lack of salient proprioceptive and vestibular signals in the latter, the available data suggest that humans learn to locate the platform based upon a constellation of distal cues in a manner similar to rats. For example, humans learn to take straight trajectories to the platform in the presence of conspicuous distal cues and show behavioral changes in relation to environmental manipulations involving distal cues similar to those described with rats [9,11,12]. It also appears that virtual place learning requires and engages a similar neural substrate including hippocampus and related structures [2,15].…”

Place learning in virtual space III: Investigation of spatial navigation training procedures and their application to fMRI and clinical neuropsychology

“…The first was used in Experiments 1-3, in Experiments 5 and 6, and in the experiments described by Jacobs et al (1997), Jacobs et al (1998), Nadel et al (1998), and Thomas et al (1999). The second, which provides more display flexibility and better data-handling capabilities, was used in Experiment 4.…”

“…Using the C-G Arena, Jacobs et al (1997) showed that, in humans, place learning can occur on the basis of computer-generated distal cues alone, place learning based on such distal cues does not disengage when computer-generated proximal cues are present, and place learning generalizes from familiar to novel start locations. Furthermore, Jacobs et al (1998) used the task to show that, in humans, place learning does not rely on any single set of distal cues, and place learning is disrupted by changes in topographical relations among distal cues.…”