How Human Use Geometric And Feature Cues In The Environment During Spatial Reorientation

Determining position is critical to the survival of botli human and animals.When we get lost,we can use the cues in the environment to reorient our direction.This process is called spatial reorientation.The cues in the environment are divided into feature cues and geometric cues.We can combine these two cues to determine our location and heading direction.When these two cues conflict with each other,we will weigh them and choose a more reliable one to complete the spatial reorientation.Some studies suggested that we are more inclined to believe in feature cues,while others believe that geometric cues play a decisive role in the process of spatial reorientation.Some of these studies were done in the real world,while others were conducted in the virtual environment.We conducted this study to explore which cues people are more inclined to use when these two cues are conflicting during spatial reorientation.In Experiment 1,we explored which clues people tend to use when the two clues conflict in the real world.In Experiment 2,we constructed a virtual room as same as the one in the Experiment 1 to explore which clues people tend to use when the two clues conflict in the virtual environment.In Experiment 3,the virtual room was expanded to twice of the one in Experiment 2 to explore whether the different performance between the virtual environment and the real world was due to the underestimation of the distance in the virtual environment.The results show that in the real world,when two clues conflict with each other,humans prefer to use geometric cues.However,when people are in the virtual environment,they prefer to use feature cues than in the real world,the different performance between the virtual environment and the real world did not increased significantly when we expanded the room size in the virtual environment.