From maps to navigation: The role of cues in finding locations in a virtual environment

Abstract

In two experiments, participants navigated through a large arena within a virtual environment (VE) to a location encoded in memory from a map. In both experiments, participants recalled locations by navigating through the VE, but in Experiment 2, they additionally recalled the locations on the original map. Two cues were located outside and above the walls of the arena at either north-south locations or east-west locations. The pattern of angular bias was used to infer how the cues affected the creation of spatial categories influencing memory for location in the two tasks. When participants navigated to remembered locations in the VE, two cue-based spatial categories were inferred, with cues serving to demarcate the boundaries of the categories. When participants remembered locations on the original map, two cue-based categories were again formed, but with cues serving as category prototypes. The pattern of results implies that cue-based spatial categorization schemes may be formulated differently at the memory retrieval stage depending on task constraints.

Two-category place representations persist over body rotations

“…Thus, the cue–geometry association was required for reorientation after each rotation to different test headings. The cue–geometry association also provides an explanation for the results of Hutcheson and Wedell ( 2012 ), in which distal cues served as boundaries in a virtual environment (VE). One target and two external cues (north and south or east and west) were studied in a map on a computer screen.…”

Primate-inspired autonomous navigation using mental rotation and advice-giving

“…Even without awareness of the starting location and the absence of maps, the individual can successfully complete the task based on the advice given to them and their own observations of the environment. The use of these visual cues or abstract representations in navigation rather than explicit directions based on distance was observed by Hutcheson et al in [5], indicating an underlying cognitive process supported by advice-giving that enables the goal to be achieved. In this paradigm, advice-giving may be used to explain the dominance of mental rotation higher up the primate evolutionary ladder.…”

A Primate-Inspired Autonomous Navigation Algorithm Using the Cognitive Mechanism of Mental Rotation

“…Hutcheson and Wedell [11] discuss how, when humans are immersed in an environment and navigating to a certain location, they tend to use these qualitative, abstract representations to navigate as opposed to using more precise distances or explicit directions; Menzel et al [4] observed a similar tactic with a nonhuman primate. The Bonobo being observed had to travel from a start location to a designated goal; it did not take a rigid trajectory but varied its path [4].…”