The effect of landmark and body-based sensory information on route knowledge

Abstract

Two experiments investigated the effects of landmarks and body-based information on route knowledge. Participants made four out-and-back journeys along a route, guided only on the first outward trip and with feedback every time an error was made. Experiment 1 used 3-D virtual environments (VEs) with a desktop monitor display, and participants were provided with no supplementary landmarks, only global landmarks, only local landmarks, or both global and local landmarks. Local landmarks significantly reduced the number of errors that participants made, but global landmarks did not. Experiment 2 used a headmounted display; here, participants who physically walked through the VE (translational and rotational body-based information) made 36% fewer errors than did participants who traveled by physically turning but changing position using a joystick. Overall, the experiments showed that participants were less sure of where to turn than which way, and journey direction interacted with sensory information to affect the number and types of errors participants made.

Active and passive contributions to spatial learning

“…The addition of motor, proprioceptive, and possibly vestibular information due to walking during exploration appears to improve performance on survey tasks such as pointing, over and above passive vision alone Waller et al, 2004). Similar results are also seen in route learning and wayfinding tasks Ruddle et al, 2011a;Ruddle et al, 2011b). This pattern seems to hold especially with complex paths or repeated exposure to the same environment Waller & Greenauer, 2007), suggesting that passive vision may be sufficient for simple environments (Mellet et al, 2010) and that idiothetic learning may build up over time.…”

“…They found that the addition of physical translation aided learning only by leading to less total distance traveled during search. Ruddle, Volkova, Mohler, and Bülthoff (2011b) examined body-based contributions to route knowledge. They had some participants walk in a virtual environment to follow a specified route and then asked them to retrace the route and repeat the out-and-back route several times.…”

“…This test of metric knowledge might explain the dependence of an active advantage on idiothetic information. Only a few studies have tested other tasks that could be based on weaker spatial knowledge (e.g., Grant & Magee, 1998;Hazen, 1982;Péruch et al, 1995;Ruddle et al, 2011b;Wilson et al, 1997;Wilson & Péruch, 2002). For example, Hazen reported better route finding by children who had freely explored than by those who were led by their parents, suggesting a role for decision making in route knowledge.…”

Learning to walk in virtual reality

“…In Experiment 2 of [Ruddle, Volkova, Mohler and Bülthoff 2011], the HMDwalk group made significantly fewer errors than the HMD turn group and some of that difference may be attributed to a difference between the groups' interface proficiency. However, interface proficiency does not account for the marked advantage that the HMDwalk group showed on the return legs of the route, compared with the outward legs.…”

Assessing the Impact of Automatic vs. Controlled Rotations on Spatial Transfer with a Joystick and a Walking Interface in VR

“…We assessed the percentage errors and the mean angular errors. These direction estimates are expected to be accurate when participants have memorized a well-developed, map-like representation of the environment [10]. This task measures survey knowledge.…”