Working memory in spatial knowledge acquisition: Differences in encoding processes and sense of direction

Summary: This study examined how different components of working memory are involved in spatial knowledge acquisition for good and poor sense-of-direction (SOD) people. We employed a dual-task method, and asked participants to learn routes from videos withverbal,visualandspatialinterference tasksandwithoutanyinterference. Resultsshowedthatparticipantswithagood SOD encoded landmarks and routes verbally and spatially, and integrated knowledge about them into survey knowledge with the support of all three components of working memory. In contrast, participants with a poor SOD encoded landmarks only verbally, and tended to rely on the visual component of working memory in the processing of route knowledge. Based on the results, a possible model for explaining the differences in spatial knowledge acquisition and SOD was proposed. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. People earn about surrounding environments and apply the knowledge to various wayfinding and navigation problems in their daily lives. For example, after moving into a new place, people learn the routes from home to work, school or shopping, and the spatial layout of the neighbourhood. During the process of acquiring such knowledge, information from the senses is filtered, abstracted, integrated, and then stored in long-term memory, a learning process called spatial knowledge acquisition. Researchers discussed that spatial knowledge is classified into three types: landmark knowledge (knowledge about discrete objects or scenes), route knowledge (sequences of landmarks and associated decisions) and survey knowledge (configurational, map-like knowledge) (Siegel & White, 1975). In survey knowledge, landmarks and routes are interrelated with each other, and the distances and directions between them, even those not directly travelled, are available. The acquisition of survey knowledge is considered a sophisticated stepindevelopment, because inlarge-scale spacesthe layout of landmarks and routes cannot be grasped from a single vantage point and its understanding requires mental integration (Ittelson, 1973). Reflecting its difficulty, there are large individual differences in the accuracy of survey knowledge (Ishikawa & Montello, 2006), and in the strategies of wayfinding such as landmark- or route-based versus