Interindividual differences influence multisensory processing during spatial navigation.

Abstract

When moving through space, we encode multiple sensory cues that guide our orientation through the environment. The integration between visual and self-motion cues is known to improve navigation. However, spatial navigation may also benefit from multisensory external signals. The present study aimed to investigate whether humans combine auditory and visual landmarks with improving their navigation abilities. Two experiments with different cue reliability were conducted. In both, participants' task was to return an object to its original location by using landmarks, which could be visual-only, auditory-only, or audiovisual. We took error and variability of object relocation distance as measures of accuracy and precision. To quantify interference between cues and assess their weights, we ran a conflict condition with a spatial discrepancy between visual and auditory landmarks. Results showed comparable accuracy and precision when navigating with visual-only and audiovisual landmarks but greater error and variability with auditory-only landmarks. Splitting participants into two groups based on given unimodal weights revealed that only subjects who associated similar weights to auditory and visual cues showed precision benefit in audiovisual conditions. These findings suggest that multisensory integration occurs depending on idiosyncratic cue weighting. Future multisensory procedures to aid mobility must consider individual differences in encoding landmarks.

Building a Cognitive Science of Human Variation: Individual Differences in Spatial Navigation

“…For example, disputes about whether spatial representations of the world are best described as cognitive maps or cognitive graphs commonly neglect the possibility that the two kinds of representation might coexist within an individual or vary across individuals or types of environments (Peer, Brunec, Newcombe, & Epstein, 2021). Studies in the real world or using Virtual Reality (VR) show that, in fact, there are very large individual differences in navigation competencies (Ishikawa & Montello, 2006; Weisberg & Newcombe, 2016, 2018; Zanchi, Cuturi, Sandini, & Gori, 2022). In addition, there has been widespread interest in links between individual differences in spatial ability and participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines (e.g., Atit, Uttal, & Stieff, 2020), including individual differences in large‐scale spatial cognition and links to general reasoning (Cortes et al., in press).…”

Not seeing the forest for the trees: Combination of path integration and landmark cues in human virtual navigation

“…also find evidence that individuals store environmental information in spatial tasks with different degrees of detail and argue for individually different complexities in spatial memory and navigation ability. These individual navigation preferences are supported by the findings of[34] who distinguish two groups of navigators, one group that weights available cues of visual and auditory modality similarly (and combines them optimally in the Bayesian sense), and another group that weights visual cues more strongly. They consider their observation of a preference for visual landmarks in one group to indicate a reset of the directional component of the PI, if landmarks are judged to be reliable by the navigator.…”

“…appearing at different locations throughout the experiment), this knowledge is quickly incorporated into the participant's navigation strategy, resulting in reduced trust in landmark-based guidance and increased reliance on PI. These effects of environmental context also seem to be expressed differently in different people, leading to individual differences in short-term learning [33] and the relative reliance on different spatial cues [34].…”

“…The findings by [9], [20], and [34] lead us to an important observation: If the use and combination of spatial cues for navigation depends on a) the makeup of the environment and b) the nature of the task at hand, it becomes necessary to more explicitly consider these factors in designing our experiments, if we want to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms that govern (human) spatial cognition. In other words, for a given task, we can categorise different environments based on how easy it will be to solve that type of task in the respective environment.…”

Architectural experience: clarifying its central components and their relation to core affect with a set of first-person-view videos

“…Additionally, though calculating NSQ scores and excluding architectural experts gave us some proxy for individual difference, there are many more facets that could be considered, as individual differences can explain navigational performance and spatial processing (e.g. Coutrot et al, 2022; Spiers et al, 2021; Zanchi et al, 2022). It would be beneficial to conduct more research including participants with different personality types and traits to get a more nuanced understanding of experiences, given that individual differences in personality are known to impact affective responses in general (Winter & Kuiper, 1997).…”