Weisberg Steven M, Newcombe Nora S
Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA,
Mem Cognit. 2014 May;42(4):648-61. doi: 10.3758/s13421-013-0387-5.
Navigators rely on many different types of cues to build representations of large-scale spaces. Sloped terrain is an important cue that has received recent attention in comparative and human spatial research. However, the studies to date have been unable to determine how directional slope information leads to more accurate spatial representations. Moreover, whereas some studies have shown that the inclusion of slope cues improves performance on spatial tasks across participants (Kelly, 2011; Restat, Steck, Mochnatzki, & Mallot, 2004), other research has suggested individual differences in the benefits of slope cues (Chai & Jacobs, 2010; Nardi, Newcombe, & Shipley, 2011). We sought to clarify the role of sloped terrain in improving the representation of large-scale environments. In Experiment 1, participants learned the layout of buildings in one of two desktop virtual environments: either a directionally sloped terrain or a completely flat one. Participants in the sloped environment outperformed those in the flat environment. However, participants used slope information as an additional cue, rather than as a preferred reference direction. In Experiment 2, the two virtual environments were again either flat or sloped, but we increased the complexity of the relations between the slope and the path. In this experiment, better performance in the sloped environment was only seen for participants with good self-reported senses of direction. Taken together, the studies show that slope provides useful information for building environmental representations in simple cases, but that individual differences emerge in more complex situations. We suggest that good and bad navigators use different navigational strategies.
导航者依靠多种不同类型的线索来构建对大规模空间的表征。倾斜地形是一个重要的线索，最近在比较和人类空间研究中受到了关注。然而，迄今为止的研究尚未能够确定方向倾斜信息是如何导致更准确的空间表征的。此外，虽然一些研究表明，纳入倾斜线索可以提高参与者在空间任务上的表现（凯利，2011年；雷萨特、施泰克、莫赫纳茨基和马洛特，2004年），但其他研究表明，倾斜线索的益处存在个体差异（柴和雅各布斯，2010年；纳尔迪、纽科姆和希普利，2011年）。我们试图阐明倾斜地形在改善大规模环境表征中的作用。在实验1中，参与者在两个桌面虚拟环境之一中学习建筑物的布局：要么是有方向倾斜的地形，要么是完全平坦的地形。倾斜环境中的参与者表现优于平坦环境中的参与者。然而，参与者将倾斜信息用作额外的线索，而不是首选的参考方向。在实验2中，两个虚拟环境再次要么是平坦的，要么是倾斜的，但我们增加了倾斜与路径之间关系的复杂性。在这个实验中，只有那些自我报告方向感良好的参与者在倾斜环境中表现更好。综合来看，这些研究表明，在简单情况下，倾斜为构建环境表征提供了有用的信息，但在更复杂的情况下会出现个体差异。我们认为，优秀和糟糕的导航者使用不同的导航策略。
