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Primacy and recency features of serial memory are a hallmark of typical memory functions that have been observed for a wide array of tasks. Recently, the ubiquity of this serial position effect has been supported for objects learned during navigation, with canonical serial position functions observed for sequence memory of landmarks that were encountered along a route during a highly controlled virtual navigation task.In the present study, we extended those findings to a real-world navigation task in which participants actively walked a route through a city whilst using a navigation aid featuring either realistic or abstract landmark visualisation styles. Analyses of serial position functions (i.e., absolute sequence knowledge) and sequence lags (i.e., relative sequence knowledge) yielded similar profiles to those observed in a lab based virtual navigation task from previous work and non-spatial list learning studies. There were strong primacy effects for serial position memory in both conditions; recency effects only in the realistic visualisation condition; a non-uniform distribution of itemlags peaking at lag +1; and an overall bias towards positive lags for both visualisation conditions. The findings demonstrate that benchmark serial position memory effects can be observed in uncontrolled, real-world behaviour. In a navigation context, the results support the notion that general memory mechanisms are involved in spatial learning, and that landmark sequence knowledge is a feature of spatial knowledge which is affected by navigation aids.

Humans increasingly rely on mobile maps to facilitate everyday mobility. These omnipresent navigation aids deteriorate spatial learning by captivating users’ attention. Landmarks facilitate spatial learning, yet, how to saliently depict them on mobile maps for guided attention and facilitated visual matching between the map and the environment remains an open question. We conducted a real-world navigation study to assess how 3D landmark visualizations (realistic vs. abstract) influence visual attention and spatial learning. Spatial learning with realistic landmarks improved when wayfinders exhibited shorter fixations on the map. Realistic landmarks also supported spatial learning of low spatial ability wayfinders. Our findings call for landmark depiction on mobile maps that go beyond “one fits all” and is based on human-adaptive design guidelines.