Going the distance: spatial scale of athletic experience affects the accuracy of path integration.

Evidence suggests that athletically trained individuals are more accurate than untrained individuals in updating their spatial position through idiothetic cues. We assessed whether training at different spatial scales affects the accuracy of path integration. Groups of rugby players (large-scale training) and martial artists (small-scale training) participated in a triangle-completion task: they were led (blindfolded) along two sides of a right-angled triangle and were required to complete the hypotenuse by returning to the origin. The groups did not differ in their assessment of the distance to the origin, but rugby players were more accurate than martial artists in assessing the correct angle to turn (heading), and landed significantly closer to the origin. These data support evidence that distance and heading components can be dissociated. Furthermore, they suggest that the spatial scale at which an individual is trained may affect the accuracy of one component of path integration but not the other.