The Route Direction Effect and its Constraints

Qualitative differences in memory for vista and environmental spaces are caused by opaque borders, not movement or successive presentation

“…Hence, never was an object layout reconstructed from the endpoint of the ES to the starting position, even though this sequence was encountered just as often as walking from start to end. Previous research showed how explicitly landmark sequence is preserved and affects memory retrieval when learning a route (Janzen, 2006;Schweizer et al, 1998;Strickrodt et al, 2015;Wiener et al, 2012) and when learning the configuration of an ES (Moar & Carleton, 1982). The present experiment extends these findings by demonstrating that order effects are determined by the very first experience within the environment (original forwards direction) even when walking in both directions (forwards and return path).…”

“…How engrained object order is in spatial memory was demonstrated in a priming experiment by Janzen (2006). After learning a route in a large-scale virtual environment containing a range of landmarks, subsequent recognition was faster when participants were primed with a former predecessor landmark, compared to a former successor landmark (see also Schweizer, Herrmann, Janzen, & Katz, 1998). These results are in line with the assumption that the representation of a route is highly integrated, following a stimulus-responsestimulus pattern that allows memorizing route landmarks as a sequence (e.g., O'Keefe & Nadel, 1978).…”

Modelling Navigational Knowledge by Route Graphs

“…If an object is briefly presented as a cue it is thus easier to recognise the name of the subsequent object than the preceding object on the route. This so-called route direction effect does not occur if the objects are just displayed in the same sequence as when travelling the path or when the optical flow is reversed while learning the route (Herrmann et al, 1995;Schweizer et al, 1998). These results indicate that spatial relations are encoded in a direction-specific way, and that the relation between two objects or places A and B is not necessarily the same as the relation between B and A.…”

“…Most, but not all of the examples used throughout this chapter, have dealt with the identification of a certain Place by relying on cues perceivable from one's actual location. This situation has been termed "field perspective" in contrast to so-called "observer perspective", which roughly corresponds to a view from above (Nigro & Neisser, 1983;Schweizer et al, 1998). Interestingly, humans can readily switch between both perspectives.…”

Not all memories are the same: Situational context influences spatial recall within one’s city of residency

“…For recalling nearby locations, view preactivation is transferred through a view graph (Röhrich et al, 2014). In view graphs, views along travelled routes are interconnected, and activation spreads along these connections (Schweizer, Herrmann, Janzen, & Katz, 1998). Activation from participants' current locations spreads along views of a route leading to the target plaza and preactivates the view encountered when entering the plaza.…”