The Influence of Landmarks and Pre-exposure to a Structural Map During the Process of Spatial Knowledge Acquisition: A Study with Children and Adults in a Virtual Environment

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the effects of featural information (landmarks) and geometric information (pre-exposure to a structural map) and their possible interaction during the process of spatial knowledge acquisition of 8- and 11-year-old children and adults in a virtual environment. The study confirmed the well-known result of a developmental achievement in spatial cognition from childhood to adulthood. Although landmarks and the pre-exposure to a structural map did not affect the time to learn a specific route, they influenced the use of behavior in spatial learning and eased the acquisition of spatial knowledge measured by a route reversal and map-drawing tasks. Children and adults are able to integrate featural and geometric information in the spatial knowledge acquisition process in an environmental space, but their integration depends on the spatial processing stages that are investigated. Moreover, it was successfully demonstrated that the use of desktop virtual environments seems to be appropriate to investigate the development of spatial cognition.     

Taxonomy of Human Wayfinding Tasks: A Knowledge-Based Approach

Abstract

Although the term “Wayfinding” has been defined by several authors, it subsumes a whole set of tasks that involve different cognitive processes, drawing on different cognitive components. Research on wayfinding has been conducted with different paradigms using a variety of wayfinding tasks. This makes it difficult to compare the results and implications of many studies. A systematic classification is needed in order to determine and investigate the cognitive processes and structural components of how humans solve wayfinding problems. Current classifications of wayfinding distinguish tasks on a rather coarse level or do not take the navigator's knowledge, a key factor in wayfinding, into account. We present an extended taxonomy of wayfinding that distinguishes tasks by external constraints as well as by the level of spatial knowledge that is available to the navigator. The taxonomy will help to decrease ambiguity of wayfinding tasks and it will facilitate understanding of the differentiated demands a navigator faces when solving wayfinding problems.     

How Navigational Aids Impair Spatial Memory: Evidence for Divided Attention

Abstract

Research has demonstrated navigational aids impair spatial memory, but has not considered important spatial cognitive concepts. For example, impairment may stem from spatial perspective switches between route-based aids and survey-based memory assessments. Further, the verbal format of aid instructions may selectively interfere with verbal working memory (VWM). To address these potential explanations, participants navigated desktop virtual environments in a goal-directed manner. In each within-participants condition, participants either navigated with a verbal or tonal aid that presented mixed spatial perspective instructions or without aid. Both aids yielded slight navigational advantages and steep spatial memory costs despite their mixed perspective instructions. The equivalent impairment between information formats suggests navigational aids impair spatial memory by dividing attention rather than selective interference of VWM.     

基于遥感图像的无固定标志点卫星自主定轨

目前基于事先选取地面标志点的卫星自主导航可能会造成误匹配和漏匹配,并且不包含地标点的遥感图像也有可能存在导航信息.为了解决这两个问题,本文提出了一种不依赖事先标定地面标志点的自主导航方法,通过YOLOv3深度学习对获得的遥感图像进行目标识别缩小图像匹配区域,将识别后的目标区域进行图像匹配获得匹配特征点及其像平面坐标,最...     

Interface Familiarity Restores Active Advantage in a Virtual Exploration and Reconstruction Task in Children

Abstract

Active exploration is reportedly better than passive observation of spatial displacements in real environments, for the acquisition of relational spatial information, especially by children. However, a previous study using a virtual environment (VE) showed that children in a passive observation condition performed better than actives when asked to reconstruct in reality the environment explored virtually. Active children were unpractised in using the input device, which may have detracted from any active advantage, since input device operation may be regarded as a concurrent task, increasing cognitive load and spatial working memory demands. To examine this possibility, 7–8-year-old children in the present study were given 5 minutes of training with the joystick input device. When compared with passive participants for spatial learning, active participants gave a better performance than passives, placing objects significantly more accurately. The importance of interface training when using VEs for assessment and training was discussed.     

The effects of maps and textual information on navigation in a desktop virtual environment

This study presents an experimentthat investigates how individuals perform anavigation test in a desktop virtualenvironment. The participants were randomlyassigned to one of the five test conditions:(C1) a map as information material during theentire test, (C2) the map only visible beforethe test, (C3) textual information during theentire test, (C4) textual information onlybefore the test and (C5) no additionalnavigational cues. The results were thatadditional information during the entire testwas more effective than short periods ofstudying the map or textual information onlybefore the test. However, participants weremore accurate in finding their route when anykind of navigational cues were used than whenno navigational cues were used. The results ofan additional questionnaire indicate thatbetween the test groups there were nodifferences in estimating the travelleddistances. The performance to draw the coveredpath into a sketch map of the landscape did notdiffer significantly between the test groupswith additional navigational cues. Theseresults indicate that in certain environmentstextual information may provide an effectivealternative to navigation training with a map.     

Environmental reference systems for large-scale spaces

Human navigation in well-known environments is guided by stored memory representations of spatial information. In three experiments (N = 43) we investigated the role of different spatial reference systems when accessing information about familiar objects at different locations in the city in which the participants lived. Our results indicate that two independent reference systems underly the retrieval of spatial knowledge. Environmental characteristics, e.g., the streets at an intersection, determine which headings are easier to imagine at a given location and lead to differences in accessibility of spatial information (orientation-specific behavior). In addition, access to spatial information depends on the relative direction of a location with respect to the imagined heading, such that information about locations imagined in front of oneself is easier to access than about locations towards the back. This influence of an egocentric reference system was found for environmental knowledge as well as map-based knowledge. In light of these reference system effects, position-dependent models of spatial memory for large-scale environments are discussed. To account for the simultaneous effect of an environmental and an egocentric reference system, we present a 2-level model of spatial memory access.     

Influence of estimation errors on wayfinding-decisions in unknown street networks – analyzing the least-angle strategy

The least-angle strategy is a common wayfinding method that can be applied in unknown environments if the target direction is known. The strategy is based on the navigator's heuristic to select the street segment at an intersection which is most in line with the target direction. To use this strategy, the navigator needs to know the angles between the target direction and the street segments leading out from the intersection. If the direct view to the target is blocked and the target vector cannot be perceived, the target direction that is needed for the decision process is based on the agent's believed position and orientation (estimated through path integration). The agent's believed position and target direction are distorted by human errors in estimation of distances and directions, mainly affecting the path integration process. In this paper we examine how human estimation errors of distance and rotation influence the decision behavior in the wayfinding process in an unknown street environment. To demonstrate the geometrical consequences for a specific test case, we use a simulated software agent which navigates in a simulated street environment.     

Variable Granularity in Route Directions

Abstract

This paper addresses changes of spatial granularity in route directions in relation to information needs in multimodal traveling. We outline a model of variability in granularity and apply this model to empirical data. Results reveal that linguistic route directions produced by humans as well as automatically generated web-based services provide the most crucial route elements in hierarchically structured ways that reflect the salient structure imposed by multimodal traveling. However, although the web-based information is impressively comprehensive, human route directions exhibit more flexibility regarding switches of place-related granularity, and they provide more detailed information at complex locations or decision points.     

Development of Landmark Knowledge at Decision Points

Two experiments investigated how people develop different landmark knowledge at decision points. Participants learned a route in a virtual city once or five times. One distinctive landmark was placed at each intersection of the route. At test, participants were released at each intersection according to the learning order and were required to determine the turning direction. At each intersection, the landmark was removed (no landmark), correctly placed (one landmark), duplicated on the other side (two identical landmarks), or misplaced from another intersection (two different landmarks) to disrupt the landmark sequence. The results suggested that humans develop different landmark knowledge (landmark knowledge for guidance, landmark knowledge for place recognition and knowledge of landmark sequence) with different navigation experience.