Differences in spatial memory recognition due to cognitive style

Field independence refers to the ability to perceive details from the surrounding context as a whole and to represent the environment by relying on an internal reference frame. Conversely, field dependence individuals tend to focus their attention on single environmental features analysing them individually. This cognitive style affects several visuo-spatial abilities including spatial memory. This study assesses both the effect of field independence and field dependence on performance displayed on virtual environments of different complexity. Forty young healthy individuals took part in this study. Participants performed the Embedded Figures Test for field independence or dependence assessment and a new spatial memory recognition test. The spatial memory recognition test demanded to memorize a green box location in a virtual room picture. Thereafter, during ten trials participants had to decide if a green box was located in the same position as in the sample picture. Five of the pictures were correct. The information available in the virtual room was manipulated. Hence, two different experimental conditions were tested: a virtual room containing all landmarks and a virtual room with only two cues. Accuracy and reaction time were registered. Analyses demonstrated that higher field independent individuals were related to better spatial memory performance in two landmarks condition and were faster in all landmark condition. In addition, men and women did not differ in their performance. These results suggested that cognitive style affects spatial memory performance and this phenomenon is modulated by environment complexity. This does not affect accuracy but time spent. Moreover, field dependent individuals are unable to organize the navigational field by relying on internal reference frames when few landmarks are available, and this causes them to commit more errors

The Effect of Emotional Landmarks on Navigation

Navigation is an essential activity that dictates which environments individuals choose to travel through. Effective navigation occurs when individuals reach their destination point efficiently and without harm. Previous research dictates that landmarks are one of the most popular ways in which individuals maintain orientation and remember a route. The goal of the current study was to investigate how emotional landmarks (landmarks that hold either a positive or negative connotation) effect navigational decision-making. Based on individuals’ tendencies to choose low risk options, it was hypothesized that participants would use the positive landmarks more effectively (i.e. participants would travel in the direction of the positive landmarks, allowing them to reach the destination point faster). Sixty participants completed a virtual reality maze. Throughout the maze were either positively or negatively rated pictures. Each participant completed four trials of the same maze, and had a minute and a half to find the destination point during each trial. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire and a Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) afterwards. Contrary to my hypothesis, neither females nor males utilized positive landmarks more effectively and efficiently in the virtual reality environment. Instead, females preferred negative landmarks, and performed better in the virtual reality maze when exposed to these landmarks

A Performance Analysis of Movement Patterns

This study investigates the differences in movement patterns followed by users navigating within a virtual environment. The analysis has been carried out between two groups of users, identified on the basis of their performance on a search task. Results indicate significant differences between efficient and inefficient navigators’ trajectories. They are related to rotational, translational and localised-landmarks behaviour. These findings are discussed in the light of theoretical outcomes provided by environmental psychology

Spatial perception of landmarks assessed by objective tracking of people and space syntax techniques

This paper focuses on space perception and how visual cues, such as landmarks, may influence the way people move in a given space. Our main goal with this research is to compare people’s movement in the real world with their movement in a replicated virtual world and study how landmarks influence their choices when deciding among different paths. The studied area was a university campus and three spatial analysis techniques were used: space syntax; an analysis of a Real Environment (RE) experiment; and an analysis of a Virtual Reality (VR) environment replicating the real experiment. The outcome data was compared and analysed in terms of finding the similarities and differences, between the observed motion flows in both RE and VR and also with the flows predicted by space syntax analysis. We found a statistically significant positive correlation between the real and virtual experiments, considering the number of passages in each segment line and considering fixations and saccades at the identified landmarks (with higher visual Integration). A statistically significant positive correlation, was also found between both RE and VR and syntactic measures. The obtained data enabled us to conclude that: i) the level of visual importance of landmarks, given by visual integration, can be captured by eye tracking data ii) our virtual environment setup is able to simulate the real world, when performing experiments on spatial perception.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Is spatial intelligibility critical to the design of largescale virtual environments?

This paper discusses the concept of 'intelligibility', a concept usually attributed to the design of real-world environments and suggests how it might be applied to the construction of virtual environments. In order to illustrate this concept, a 3d, online, collaborative environment, AlphaWorld, is analyzed in a manner analogous to spatial analysis techniques applied to cities in the real world. The outcome of this form of spatial analysis is that AlphaWorld appears to be highly 'intelligible' at the small-scale, 'local neighborhood' level, and yet is completely 'unintelligible' at a global level. This paper concludes with a discussion of the relevance of this finding to virtual environment design plus future research applications