Memory for Object Location in Augmented Reality: The Role of Gender and the Relationship Among Spatial and Anxiety Outcomes

Abstract

The potential of augmented reality (AR) technology for the study of spatial memory and orientation is a new research field. AR defines systems that attempt to enhance the user’s experience with the physical world. In our app, we enhance the sense of sight by adding interactive 3D elements to the real environment. Our app can be used in any real environment so that the experimental conditions during the tasks and the way in which an individual navigates are similar to those used in real life. With AR, the experimenter has a high level of control of the task and can store the participant’s responses accurately. The classical factors that influence an individual’s performance on virtual spatial tasks are gender and cognitive factors. The influence of emotional factors on spatial performance has been studied more recently. Since AR tasks for the study of spatial memory and spatial orientation are new developments, little is known about the factors that are related to performance on tasks of this type. In our study, we tested 46 young adults (26 women) in an AR object-location task that was performed in a building. The participants had to memorize the position of eight virtual objects while they were walking through the environment. We also assessed the participants’ performance on an object-recall task, a map-pointing task, and a paper-and-pencil spatial orientation task. The self-reported importance of different spatial strategies for wayfinding and the levels of trait anxiety and wayfinding anxiety were also evaluated. Our findings indicate that men performed better on the spatial paper-and-pencil test and spent more time completing the learning phase of the AR task. The spatial memory for the location of the objects in AR and on the map correlated positively. Anxiety was related to individual differences in the self-reported use of a spatial orientation strategy, but the association among them was weak. Trait anxiety was positively related to the time employed by the participants during the learning phase of the AR task, whereas wayfinding anxiety correlated negatively with the preference for an orientation strategy. Our results highlight the importance of anxiety in spatial orientation.

SLAM-based augmented reality for the assessment of short-term spatial memory. A comparative study of visual versus tactile stimuli

“…Our research group has presented most of these works. Our group has pioneered the development and validation of AR applications for the assessment of spatial memory [20,[29][30][31]. In the first work [20,29], we developed an AR application that used image targets that were distributed in the real world.…”

“…In the first work [20,29], we developed an AR application that used image targets that were distributed in the real world. In the second work [30,31], we presented an AR application based on SLAM for visual stimuli. The main difference with the previous work was that no additional elements were added to the real environment.…”

“…We checked the total score of the participants in the PTSOT test as an inclusion criterion (Fig 7D). We used the previously published PTSOT scores as the upper limit for men and women [30]. These upper limits are 57.61˚for men and 92.03˚for women.…”

Better Destination Memory in Females

“…Research has demonstrated that, generally speaking, males perform better than females in visuo-spatial working memory tasks ( Cornoldi & Vecchi, 2004 ). However, one study has demonstrated that, although males performed better than females on a paper-andpencil task assessing object-location memory, no differences were observed on an augmented reality task assessing this type of memory ( Munoz-Montoya et al, 2019 ). Also, the participants’ performance in this study was significantly correlated with anxiety.…”

Developing and Evaluating a Game for the Assessment of Spatial Memory Using Auditory Stimuli

“…Munoz et al [19] demostraron que recorrer el entorno y ver los objetos virtuales en el mundo real ayuda a los participantes a recordar la ubicación de los objetos virtuales en el entorno real si se compara con ver fotografías del entorno aumentado. Nuestra propuesta comparte la misma idea de que los estímulos a utilizar deben estar ubicados en el entorno real [19] [20]. En…”