Landmark-Based Navigation Instructions Improve Incidental Spatial Knowledge Acquisition in Real-World Environments

Abstract

Background. The repeated use of navigation assistance systems leads to decreased spatial orienting abilities. Previous studies demonstrated that augmentation of landmarks using auditory navigation instructions can improve incidental spatial learning when driving on a single route through an unfamiliar environment.Objective. Based on these results, a series of experiments was conducted to further investigate both the impairment of spatial knowledge acquisition by standard navigation instructions and the positive impact of landmark augmentation in auditory navigation instructions on incidental spatial learning.Method. The first Experiment replicated the previous setup in a driving simulator without additional visual route indicators. In a second experiment, spatial knowledge was tested after watching a video depicting assisted navigation along a real-world urban route. Finally, a third Experiment investigated incidental spatial knowledge acquisition when participants actively navigated through an unrestricted real-world, urban environment.Results. All three experiments demonstrated better cued-recall performance for participants navigating with landmark-based auditory navigation instructions as compared to standard instructions. Notably, standard instructions were associated with reduced learning of landmarks at navigation relevant intersections as compared to landmarks alongside straight segments and the recognition of novel landmarks.Conclusion. The results revealed a suppression of spatial learning by established navigation instructions, which were overcome by landmark-based navigation instructions. This emphasizes the positive impact of auditory landmark augmentation on incidental spatial learning and its generalizability to real-life settings.Application. This research is paving the way for navigation assistants that, instead of impairing orienting abilities, incidentally foster spatial learning during every-day navigation.Précis: This series of three experiments replicates the suppression of spatial learning by standard navigation instructions and the positive impact of landmark augmentation in auditory navigation instructions on incidental spatial learning during assisted navigation. Three experiments with growing degree of realism revealed the applicability and generalizability to real-life settings.

Eye movement‐related brain potentials during assisted navigation in real‐world environments

“…All had normal or corrected to normal vision and gave informed consent prior to the study which was approved by the local research ethics committee of the Institute for Psychology and Ergonomics at the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin. Before the main experiment, participants filled out an online questionnaire to determine if they were familiar with the area where the navigation task would take place (Wunderlich & Gramann, 2020). After navigating the route, participants were again asked whether they had been familiar with the navigated route.…”

“…These studies further demonstrated the successful incidental acquisition of landmark and route knowledge when landmark-based rather than standard instructions were used. The experimental setups in these studies ranged from simulated driving through a virtual world (Wunderlich & Gramann, 2018) to interactive videos of walking or actually walking through the real-world (Wunderlich & Gramann, 2020). The results revealed higher amplitudes of the event-related late positive component (LPC) at parietal leads with the cued recall of landmark pictures.…”

Eye-movement related brain potentials during assisted navigation in real-world

“…All had normal or corrected to normal vision and gave informed consent prior to the study which was approved by the local research ethics committee of the Institute for Psychology and Ergonomics at the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin. Before the main experiment, participants filled out an online questionnaire to determine if they were familiar with the area where the navigation task would take place as used in Wunderlich and Gramann (2020). After navigating the route, participants were again asked whether they had been familiar with the navigated route.…”

“…These studies further demonstrated the successful incidental acquisition of landmark and route knowledge when landmark-based rather than standard instructions were used. The experimental setups in these studies ranged from simulated driving through a virtual world Wunderlich and Gramann (2018) to interactive videos of walking through the real world or actual walking through the real-world (Wunderlich and Gramann, 2020). The results of Wunderlich and Gramann (2018) further showed changes in the event-related brain activity with cued recall of landmark pictures, which corresponded to the performance differences observed (Wunderlich and Gramann, 2018).…”

Capturing cognitive events embedded in the real-world using mobile EEG and Eye-Tracking

“…implemented a microphone and a dedicated processing pipeline to detect the onset of natural sounds and lock the associated EEG analyses to unveil auditory attention processes. In a series of studies looking at spatial knowledge acquisition in natural environments (Wunderlich and Gramann, 2021), the experimenter was following the participants navigating through a urban environment and encoded the timing of experimental events manually through a smartphone interface that was synchronized to the EEG system. These manually encoded timestamps, although arguably not of the highest temporal precision, provide nevertheless a basis for the extraction of experimental events.…”