The Structure Of Spatial Representation In The Virtual Environment

Most human behavior relies on spatial representation stored in memory.The structure of spatial representation refers the organization form of spatial information stored in brain,and people would get spatial information under specific spatial reference system.Theories of structure of spatial representation can be distinguished into two types of theories,local representation theories and global representation theories.And global representation theories include nonhierarchical theories,strongly hierarchical theories and partially hierarchical theories.Local representation theories propose spatial representation are independent fragments.Nonhierarchical theories claim there is no hierarchical structure to the representation,everything is represented at the "same level".Strongly hierarchical theories propose that spatial relations between locations in different branches of the hierarchy must be inferred from higher order spatial knowledge.Partially hierarchical theories allow spatial relation to be encoded between locations in different regions of an environment,so these spatial relations can be directly retrieve.The existing experiments on the spatial representation structure are based on real environment or desktop virtual environment,and the results were support the local representation theories or partially hierarchical theories.Therefore,this paper explored the spatial representation structure in immersive virtual environment.In this experiment,there are three groups of subjects,free navigation group,constrained navigation group and map group.The experimental materials are 3D virtual environment and corresponding map.The spatial relations between pairs of objects locations were decided by three variables within subjects,they are distance(far/close),region(same region/different region),and alignment(align/misalign).The results find,when objects were in the same region,the response time of subjects determine the spatial relations of objects were significantly less than objects were in different region;and subjects' estimates of the distance between objects in the same region were significantly less the estimated distance of objects in different regions.These results show the mind distance objects of different area was larger than objects in the same area.Results also find when subjects determined the spatial relations between objects in different area,the angle error correspond with superordinate spatial relations,support the hierarchical theories.Last,results find when subjects determined the spatial relations between objects in different area,the response time of close objects were significantly less than far objects,imply there were distance information of objects in different area exist in spatial representation,support partially hierarchical theories.From this experiment,we find no matter the spatial information of objects acquired from immersive environment of map,the experimental results support partially hierarchical theories.Therefore,the field of artificial intelligence on the design of the products and immersive virtual game design should be more consistent with the partially hierarchical theories.