Individual skill differences and large-scale environmental learning.

Spatial skills are known to vary widely among normal individuals. This project was designed to address whether these individual differences are differentially related to large-scale environmental learning from route (ground-level) and survey (aerial) perspectives. Participants learned two virtual environments (route and survey) with limited exposure and tested on judgments about relative locations of objects. They also performed a series of spatial and nonspatial component skill tests. With limited learning, performance after route encoding was worse than performance after survey encoding. Furthermore, performance after route and survey encoding appeared to be preferentially linked to perspective and object-based transformations, respectively. Together, the results provide clues to how different skills might be engaged by different individuals for the same goal of learning a large-scale environment.

[1]  T. McNamara,et al.  Multiple views of spatial memory , 1997 .

[2]  M. Just,et al.  Cognitive coordinate systems: accounts of mental rotation and individual differences in spatial ability. , 1985, Psychological review.

[3]  Barbara Hayes-Roth,et al.  Differences in spatial knowledge acquired from maps and navigation , 1982, Cognitive Psychology.

[4]  R. De Beni,et al.  Strategies of processing spatial information in survey and landmark-centred individuals , 2001 .

[5]  D. Kimura,et al.  Sex differences in route-learning , 1993 .

[6]  R. Kail.  Controlled and automatic processing during mental rotation. , 1991, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[7]  R. Shepard,et al.  Mental Rotation of Three-Dimensional Objects , 1971, Science.

[8]  Timothy P. McNamara,et al.  Systems of Spatial Reference in Human Memory , 2001, Cognitive Psychology.

[9]  T. McNamara,et al.  Orientation and perspective dependence in route and survey learning. , 2004, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[10]  Richard S. J. Frackowiak,et al.  Knowing where and getting there: a human navigation network. , 1998, Science.

[11]  R J Mumaw,et al.  Different slopes for different folks: Process analysis of spatial aptitude , 1984, Memory & cognition.

[12]  Neil H. Schwartz,et al.  Individual differences in the retention of maps , 1991 .

[13]  M. Hegarty,et al.  A dissociation between object manipulation spatial ability and spatial orientation ability , 2001, Memory & cognition.

[14]  R. Long,et al.  Predicting environmental learning from spatial abilities: An indirect route , 1996 .

[15]  M. Sholl.  The relation between sense of direction and mental geographic updating , 1988 .

[16]  D. R. Montello,et al.  Integrating Knowledge of Vertically Aligned Large-Scale Spaces , 1993 .

[17]  S. Vandenberg,et al.  Mental Rotations, a Group Test of Three-Dimensional Spatial Visualization , 1978, Perceptual and motor skills.

[18]  Edward Awh,et al.  Modules of Working Memory , 2003 .

[19]  Stephen C. Hirtle,et al.  Acquisition of spatial knowledge for routes , 1991 .

[20]  N. R. Ellis,et al.  Individual differences in location memory , 1993 .

[21]  Shannon Dawn Moeser.  Cognitive Mapping in a Complex Building , 1988 .

[22]  C. Lawton.  STRATEGIES FOR INDOOR WAYFINDING: THE ROLE OF ORIENTATION , 1996 .

[23]  Anthony E. Richardson,et al.  Development of a self-report measure of environmental spatial ability. , 2002 .

[24]  M. Hegarty,et al.  A dissociation between mental rotation and perspective-taking spatial abilities , 2004 .

[25]  Prostitution In Nevada,et al.  ANNALS of the Association of American Geographers , 1974 .

[26]  Anthony E. Richardson,et al.  Spatial knowledge acquisition from maps and from navigation in real and virtual environments , 1999, Memory & cognition.

[27]  Mary Hegarty,et al.  Spatial Memory of Real Environments, Virtual Environments, and Maps , 2004 .

[28]  Frank Rösler,et al.  Principles of Learning and Memory , 2003 .

[29]  Jeffrey M. Zacks,et al.  Imagined transformations of bodies: an fMRI investigation , 1999, Neuropsychologia.

[30]  Barbara Tversky,et al.  Mental spatial transformations of objects and perspective , 2001, Spatial Cogn. Comput..

[31]  Dylan M. Jones,et al.  Navigating Buildings in "Desk-Top" Virtual Environments: Experimental Investigations Using Extended Navigational Experience , 1997 .

[32]  J. Money,et al.  Turner's syndrome: further demonstration of the presence of specific cognitional deficiencies. , 1966, Journal of medical genetics.

[33]  F. J. Langdon,et al.  The Child's Conception of Space , 1967 .

[34]  Matthew Flatt,et al.  PsyScope: An interactive graphic system for designing and controlling experiments in the psychology laboratory using Macintosh computers , 1993 .

[35]  John D E Gabrieli,et al.  Neural correlates of individual differences in spatial learning strategies. , 2004, Neuropsychology.

[36]  Randall W. Engle,et al.  Simple and complex word spans as measures of working memory capacity. , 1990 .

[37]  M. Denis,et al.  Spatial discourse and navigation: an analysis of route directions in the city of Venice , 1999 .

[38]  R. Passini.  Spatial representations, a wayfinding perspective , 1984 .

[39]  S. Bricogne,et al.  Neural Correlates of Topographic Mental Exploration: The Impact of Route versus Survey Perspective Learning , 2000, NeuroImage.

[40]  Gary L. Allen,et al.  Human spatial memory : remembering where , 2004 .

[41]  L. Kozlowski,et al.  Sense of direction, spatial orientation, and cognitive maps. , 1977 .

[42]  Daniel R. Montello,et al.  Sex-Related Differences and Similarities in Geographic and Environmental Spatial Abilities , 1999 .

[43]  J. Hudson.  A DIAMOND ANNIVERSARY , 1979 .

[44]  J. Gabrieli,et al.  Neural Correlates of Encoding Space from Route and Survey Perspectives , 2002, The Journal of Neuroscience.