Current car navigation systems primarily utilize track-up maps with spatial turn arrows, which facilitate turn decision-making but do not facilitate acquisition of spatial knowledge of the region. North-up maps do facilitate acquisition of regional spatial knowledge, however, these displays sometimes have arrows heading in directions misaligned with a driver\u27s forward view, such as when the car is heading south. Drivers have difficulty making turn decisions in these misaligned maps because of stimulus-response reversals (Chan and Chan, 2005; Levine, 1982; Levine, Marchon and Hanley, 1984; Montello, 2010). A new display was designed using a fixed orientation north-up map and added a verbal cue to the traditional turn arrow. People are able to concurrently process verbal and spatial information (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974; Paivio, 1971; Paivio, 2006). The new verbal north-up map was compared with traditional north-up and track-up maps, and a no map aid with auditory turn instructions. Participants drove through a simulated environment and made left or right intention-to-turn responses to the map indicator or the auditory instructions. Following the driving simulation, participants drew a sketch map of the region, which was scored to evaluate configural spatial knowledge. Results showed participants using the verbal north-up map acquired more accurate configural spatial knowledge and showed no evidence of decrement in performance for intention to turn times
