Acquisition of spatial knowledge during navigation: the role of internal and external factors

The general aim of this project of research was to investigate the role of internal and external factors involved in the construction of a spatial representation during navigation. The main question of this dissertation was: do we need the same type of memory to retrace a route and find a shortcut? In other words: which type of memory is involved in the construction of route and survey representation respectively? In research the main question is about the role of working memory in the construction of spatial representation. According to Baddeley's model (1986), working memory is not a unitary system, but it is possible to distinguish an attentional control system—the central executive—and two subsystems—the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad, which encodes and maintains verbal information and visuospatial information, respectively (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Until now, research carried out to date on spatial representation has looked at the role of verbal (VWM) and visuo-spatial (VSWM) working memory in the construction of route representation during navigation (Garden et al., 2002; Meilinguer et al., 2008). However it remains unclear the involvement of working memory in the construction of survey knowledge. In addition, the construction of survey representation, as recent frameworks suggested (Montello et al., 1999; Kitchin et al., 1994), seems to depend also on individual difference, but little is known about the role of external factors such as the presence of landmarks or the influence of specific instructions in guiding navigation behaviour. A series of four experiments was carried out. In all experiments we investigated the role of both subcomponents of working memory through classic paradigm of dual task. Participants learned a route in a virtual (Experiments 1, 3 and 4,) or real environment (Experiment 2) performing spatial or verbal secondary task simultaneously. Reproduction of the route, pointing task, drawing map and finding a shortcut were used to investigate the construction of route and survey representation during navigation. Our results supported that the ability to retrace a route depends on encoding and maintaining the information in VWM and VSW whereas the ability to find a shortcut seems to be related on the involvement of VSWM (Experiment 1 – 2). In addition, our results confirmed that there are large individual differences in both ability to learn spatial layout and in how spatial layout is preferentially encoded (Experiment 2), and added that the sense of direction becomes the predictor of the acquisition of survey knowledge in the learning conditions without landmarks (Experiment 3). Moreover our results showed that the process of acquisition of spatial knowledge implicates also external factors, demonstrating, specifically, that the presence of landmarks and receiving specific instructions about the task facilitate the construction of mental representation (Experiment 4). In conclusion our results add to the growing body of literature supporting that the acquisition of spatial knowledge is a multi-level process influenced by internal and external factors.

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