Interactive navigational learning in a virtual environment: Cognitive, physical, attentional, and visual components

There are three aspects of "interactive" navigation that may contribute to the acquisition of spatial knowledge from a VE: (1) control over navigation (both physical and cognitive), (2) attention directed towards the spatial goal of the task, and (3) the visual presentation of the VE itself. The two experiments reported here are among the first to systematically assess the individual and combined influence of each of these three variables for spatial information transfer. Participants were trained on the layout of a building using either a VE or an interactive map. The degree to which both route and survey knowledge transferred to the real world building was assessed. Upon completion of the real world tasks, participants returned to their training environment to report information, namely the location of specific objects, gathered while in the real world.; Experiment 1 addressed the degree to which type of control and allocation of attention influenced learning in a traditional VE. Results indicated that participants who had physical control over navigation (i.e., used the joystick to navigate during training) were less accurate during real world wayfinding than participants who did not have physical control. Participants with only cognitive control over navigation were most accurate on an object recall task. These differences indicate that the degree to which control and attention influence performance may differ according to the type of spatial knowledge being measured.; Experiment 2 used an interactive map to address the influence of the visual presentation of the environment, together with issues of control and attention. Participants with cognitive control during training were more accurate during real world navigation tasks than those without cognitive control, while participants with physical control were again less accurate. Attention was dependent on physical control. Participants not using the joystick but aware of the spatial learning goals of the task were more accurate during wayfinding than participants who used a joystick during training, while those who counted turns were less accurate than participants using a joystick. Comparisons between Experiments indicate Control and Attention variables account for some, but not all, of the advantages found in typical 3-dimensional interactive VE learning.