| Spatial navigation refers to the process of identifying and memorizing routes within a familiar or unfamiliar environment.Spatial navigation ability is critical to day-to-day life.Successful navigation hinges on a number of cognitive processes,involving memory,attention,and people's perception in terms of direction and distance.It has been revealed by existing studies that there have been significant individual differences in navigational competence,so what is the reason for this?Some researchers have identified field cognitive style as being a significant influencing factor of spatial navigation ability.Despite the common adoption of Embedded Figures Test(EFT)for measuring individual's field cognitive styles,it has been argued that EFT serves only as a test of cognitive ability rather than of cognitive style.Hence,this study employs two tasks to determine field cognitive styles,and investigates the presence of consistent effects on spatial navigation ability among the field cognitive styles distinguished by various types of tests.Likewise,spatial reference system is also a key research domain in spatial navigation.Both self-and environmental spatial reference frames characterize object spatial orientation in an explicit and correct manner,whereas individuals exhibit varying reference frame preferences in representing spatial orientation information.Is such spatial reference system preference correlated with spatial navigation ability? Two measurements of spatial reference preference are used in this study to explore if there is a consistent effect of spatial reference preference on spatial navigation ability in accordance with spatial reference system preferences distinguished by different types of measurements.Experiment 1 is designed to explore the relationship between field cognitive styles and spatial navigation ability.A total of 100 university students have been randomly selected to determine the individual field cognitive style utilizing Witkin's(1971)EFT and Goldberg's(1994)Cognitive Bias Task.Additionally,the Santa Barbara Spatial Orientation Sense Scale,and Wiener's(2019)Spatial Navigation Ability Test task have been utilized to measure subjects' spatial navigation abilities.It has been observed that individuals with high scores in the EFT(field independence)demonstrate significantly better spatial navigation abilities than those with low scores(field dependence);individuals scoring low on the Cognitive Preference Test(field independence)exhibit significantly better spatial navigation abilities than those scoring high(field dependence).Experiment 2 aims to explore the relationship between spatial reference system preference and spatial navigation ability.A total of 100 university students have been randomly selected.Individual spatial reference system preferences are measured with the reference Frame Judgment Task of Zhang and Tan(2014),and the Star Tunnel task of Goeke(2015).The Santa Barbara Spatial Orientation Sense Scale and Wiener's(2019)Spatial Navigation Ability Test have been applied as measures of the individual spatial navigation ability.Findings have suggested that the spatial navigation ability of turners(egocentric)is significantly superior to that of non-turners(allocentric)during the star navigation task;with respect to the reference frame judgment task,subjects with a preference for an egocentric demonstrate a significantly greater spatial navigation ability than those with a preference for an allocentric.The following conclusions can be reached from the above studies:(1)Field cognitive style can affect spatial navigation ability.Field-independent individuals outperform field-dependent subjects regarding spatial navigation ability in the EFT,while field-independent individuals also outperform field-dependent subjects regarding spatial navigation ability in the Cognitive Bias Task.(2)Spatial reference system preference can influence spatial navigation ability.During the Star Tunnel Task,the spatial navigation ability favored by the turners(egocentric)is better than that of the non-turners(allocentric),while the egocentric preference shows better spatial navigation ability than that of the allocentric preference during the Frame Judgment Task. |
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