Spatial Perception and Cognition, Insights From Virtual Reality Experiments

Abstract

Several important questions of human spatial perception and cognition can only be answered with the use of virtual reality. Virtual environments enable the manipulation of reality, and their perception provides us insights on how spatial cognition works under normal circumstances. The present dissertation also benefits from this tool in answering how our senses, our body, and our viewpoint affect our spatial representations. In the first study, we investigated how different viewpoints are associated with different reference frames. The results of the tablet PC navigation task showed that when we take a ground-level viewpoint, an egocentric frame of reference is preferred. However, from an aerial viewpoint, using an allocentric frame of reference results in better navigation performance. This difference motivated the second study presented herein. We examined how the lack of constant feedback from our position change affects navigation. In the experiment, participants were searching rewards in the East or the West alleys of a cross-maze. Before each choice, they were teleported randomly either to the South or to the North alley. The teleportation induced reorientation, which resulted in profound topographic ERP differences as early as 100 msec. Furthermore, we found that, here, reward objects were represented in allocentric reference frame. Because both of these studies were primarily visual, in the next study we demonstrated the dominance of vision in spatial perception. We showed that sounds were perceived as coming from the direction of the concurrent visual stimuli in virtual reality. The role of multisensory perception in spatial cognition has been the focus of the last study. In this experiment we showed that object seem farther when we look up to them, and they seem closer when we look down at them. This phenomenon is caused by a multisensory integration between vision and the vestibular sense. The four presented studies support the notion of multisensory and collage-like nature of cognitive maps. The present research, besides of its significance to basic research, holds also important implications for applied fields. Hence, we devote the last chapter to discussing our results from the perspective of virtual reality navigation interface design. This work is original, except where references and acknowledgements are made to previous work. Neither this nor any substantially similar dissertation has been or is being submitted for any other degree, diploma, or other qualification at any other university.