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This paper compares actual and simulated navigation as alternative sources of environmental information. Subjects experienced an 8.3-km tour of an unfamiliar environment through one of two media: a live bus tour along the route or a film shot from inside an automobile driving along the route. Subjects also received one of two types of supplementary information (a map that was studied prior to navigation or an oral narrative giving angle and distance information during navigation), or no supplement. After exposure to the environment, all subjects completed tests of landmark knowledge, procedural (route sequence) knowledge, and survey (configural relation) knowledge. Film (simulated navigation) groups performed as well as or better than tour groups on measures of landmark and survey knowledge. On tests of procedural knowledge, film groups were inferior to tour groups in their ability to point in the direction of unseen landmarks. Supplementary information affected only the film groups. Map study enhanced performance on survey knowledge tests but depressed performance on procedural knowledge tests. We conclude that simulated navigation can be used as a substitute for actual navigation under some circumstances, and that a map supplement can enhance the abstraction of survey knowledge from simulated navigation.

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Three studies are reported that argue for the importance of prototypic configurations in chess memory representations. Recall of stereotyped or typical positions after a S-sec exposure was superior to recall of more unusual and interesting positions. This effect was very robust and was independent of skill level and prior experience with the ideas and plans that generated the stimulus position. Subjects were also more likely to reconstruct a typical position correctly based on partial information. Finally, typical positions were recognized more accurately than atypical positions after a brief study period. These results suggest that long-term knowledge about chess may be organized around highly typical exemplars of general position types, as seems to be the case in other domains.Ordinary equals important. This has been the message of recent research exploring the significance of typical or representative objects and events in human memory and judgment. There is evidence that knowledge centers around a representation of prototypical elements in domains as disparate as color memory (Rosch, 1973), knowledge about real world objects (

Two experiments using a levels-of-processing paradigm were performed to demonstrate the existence and usefulness of a semantic component in chess knowledge. Experiment I compared forced-choice recognition of chess positions after a structural task (piece counting) as opposed to a semantic task (choosing a move). Recognition accuracy, confidence, and familiarity ratings all showed a facilitation effect in the semantic condition. By including an orienting task that did not encourage semantic processing but still allowed pattern-matching operations to occur (copying a board), Experiment II demonstrated that this task effect was a genuine enhancement of memory due to meaningful processing. One again, the processing of meaningful relations in the semantic task (positional evaluation) produced a higher level of recognition performance than did the more structural processing. These results suggest that aspects of meaning have some input into the processes that generate the memory representation of a chess position.