Distance cognition in virtual environmental space: Further investigations to clarify the route-angularity effect

Jansen-Osmann, Petra; Wiedenbauer, Gunnar

doi:10.1007/s00426-004-0183-8

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Though the authors have no reason to believe that these individuals would be more or less vulnerable to the number of turns when making estimates, continuing research should control or record participant location. Second, though this study's manipulation of number of turns did aff ord direct comparison to prior research (i.e., 2 vs 7 turns; Jansen- Osmann & Wiedenbauer, 2004a, 2004b, and extended this research by including 1, 3, and 5 turns, there may be benefi t to more fi nely incrementing the number of turns between 1 and 7. To the authors' knowledge, no research to date has precisely defi ned all number of turn increments within those limits.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 85%

Paths with More Turns are Perceived as Longer: Misperceptions with Map-Based and Abstracted Path Stimuli

2015

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When navigating, people tend to overestimate distances when routes contain more turns, termed the route-angularity effect. Three experiments examined the source and generality of this effect. The first two experiments examined whether route-angularity effects occur while viewing maps and might be related to sex differences or sense of direction. The third experiment tested whether the route-angularity effect would occur with stimuli devoid of spatial context, reducing influences of environmental experience and visual complexity. In the three experiments, participants (N=1,552; M=32.2 yr.; 992 men, 560 women) viewed paths plotted on maps (Exps. 1 and 2) or against a blank background (Exp. 3). The depicted paths were always the same overall length, but varied in the number of turns (from 1 to 7) connecting an origin and destination. Participants were asked to estimate the time to traverse each path (Exp. 1) or the length of each path (Exps. 2 and 3). The Santa Barbara Sense of Direction questionnaire was administered to assess whether overall spatial sense of direction would be negatively related to the magnitude of the route-angularity effect. Repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) indicated that paths with more turns elicited estimates of greater distance and travel times, whether they were depicted on maps or blank backgrounds. Linear regressions also indicated that these effects were significantly larger in those with a relatively low sense of direction. The results support the route-angularity effect and extend it to paths plotted on map-based stimuli. Furthermore, because the route-angularity effect was shown with paths plotted against blank backgrounds, route-angularity effects are not specific to understanding environments and may arise at the level of visual perception.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 85%

Paths with More Turns are Perceived as Longer: Misperceptions with Map-Based and Abstracted Path Stimuli

2015

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“…For example, Ruddle, Payne, and Jones (1997) could replicate the results of direction and distance knowledge obtained in real-world settings (Thorndyke & Hayes-Roth, 1982) in a virtual environment; May and Klatzky (2000) showed that the effect of irrelevant movements on path integration was similar in real and desktop virtual environments. Virtual environments allow participants to acquire distance knowledge (Jansen-Osmann & Berendt, 2002;Jansen-Osmann & Wiedenbauer, 2004a;Willemsen & Gooch, 2002), knowledge about directions (Albert, Rensink, & Beusmanns, 1999), and route and survey knowledge (Gillner & Mallot, 1998;Jansen-Osmann, 2002). However, there may also be drawbacks, especially when desktop virtual reality systems are used, and no proprioceptive sensory information is generated (Witmer, Bailey, Knerr, & Parsons, 1996).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What makes a route appear longer? An experimental perspective on features, route segmentation, and distance knowledge

Jansen-Osmann

Berendt

2005

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A

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Five experiments performed in a desktop virtual-reality setting investigated the influence of environmental features—that is, noticeable landmarks along the route—on distance estimation. Landmarks were of two types: Either they simply “filled” the route or they “filled” and also segmented it, thereby inducing a hierarchical structuring of the route. Previous research had left the question open of whether a filling or a segmenting feature leads to an overestimation of a distance along the route. Our experiments showed different results dependent on the kind of space: If an environment was learned from a route perspective, filling and segmenting environmental features led to overestimations of distances, while the segmenting of a route induced by a grouping of similar features did not. If the environment was learned from a map that afforded a survey perspective, route structuring induced through a segmenting feature or by phenomenal grouping led to an overestimation of distances, whereas features that merely filled the route did not.

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“…Because metric representations are less durable, conditions that challenge memory systems are likely to result in relative reliance on non-metric memory codes. For example, Jansen-Osmann and Wiedenbauer (2006) observed an angularity effect when distance estimates were made after walking all paths (two turn, seven turn, reference), but no effect when estimates were made after each path. As participants walk and encode additional path lengths, the relative availability of fine-grained, metric spatial information decreases, and the influence of non-metric information (number of turns) emerges.…”

Section: Features Make Paths Seem Longermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sadalla and Staplin’s name frequency manipulation served to increase the relative availability of non-metric codes (how many names are associated with a given path), and thus increased the feature accumulation effect. Hutcheson and Wedell employed manipulations (concurrent tasks and filled delays) that served to decrease the relative availability of metric spatial codes, which also increased the feature accumulation effect (also see Jansen-Osmann & Wiedenbauer, 2006). Thus, the dual memory systems account suggests that the feature accumulation effect depends not only on the quantity of information associated with a route, but on the quality of that information as well.…”

Section: Features Make Paths Seem Longermentioning

confidence: 99%

Distraction shrinks space

et al. 2013

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Research investigating how people remember the distance of paths they walk has shown two apparently conflicting effects of experience during encoding on subsequent distance judgments. By the feature accumulation effect discrete path features such as turns, houses or other landmarks cause an increase in remembered distance. By the distractor effect performance of a concurrent task during path encoding causes a decrease in remembered distance. This study asks: What are the conditions that determine whether the feature accumulation or the distractor effect dominates distortions of space? In two experiments, blindfolded participants were guided along two legs of a right triangle while reciting nonsense syllables. On some trials, one of the two legs contained features: horizontally mounted car antennas (gates) that bent out of the way as participants walked past. At the end of the second leg participants either indicated the remembered path leg lengths using their hands in a ratio estimation task, or attempted to walk, unguided, straight back to the beginning. In addition to response mode, visual access to the paths and time between encoding and response were manipulated to determine if these factors affected feature accumulation or distractor effects. Path legs with added features were remembered as shorter than those without, but this result was only significant in the haptic response mode data. This finding suggests that when people form spatial memory representations with the intention of navigating in room-scale spaces, interfering with information accumulation substantially distorts spatial memory.

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Distance cognition in virtual environmental space: Further investigations to clarify the route-angularity effect

Cited by 18 publications

References 43 publications

Paths with More Turns are Perceived as Longer: Misperceptions with Map-Based and Abstracted Path Stimuli

Paths with More Turns are Perceived as Longer: Misperceptions with Map-Based and Abstracted Path Stimuli

What makes a route appear longer? An experimental perspective on features, route segmentation, and distance knowledge

Distraction shrinks space

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