Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
Department of Computing and Software, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2022 Mar 7;7(1):22. doi: 10.1186/s41235-022-00374-w.
We used a driving simulator to investigate landmark-based route navigation in young adults. Previous research has examined how proximal and distal landmarks influence route navigation, however, these effects have not been extensively tested in ecologically-relevant settings. We used a virtual town in which participants learned various routes while simultaneously driving. We first examined the effect of four different landmark conditions on navigation performance, such that each driver experienced one of four versions of the town with either proximal landmarks only, distal landmarks only, both proximal and distal landmarks, or no landmarks. Drivers were given real-time navigation directions along a route to a target destination, and were then tested on their ability to navigate to the same destination without directions. We found that the presence of proximal landmarks significantly improved route navigation. We then examined the effect of prior exposure to proximal vs. distal landmarks by testing the same drivers in the same environment they previously encountered, but with the landmarks removed. In this case, we found that prior exposure to distal landmarks significantly improved route navigation. The present results are in line with existing research on route navigation and landmarks, suggesting that these findings can be extended to ecologically-relevant settings.
我们使用驾驶模拟器研究了年轻人基于地标物的路线导航。先前的研究已经检验了近端和远端地标物如何影响路线导航，但是这些影响在生态相关的环境中尚未得到广泛测试。我们使用了一个虚拟小镇，参与者在驾驶的同时学习各种路线。我们首先检验了四种不同地标条件对导航表现的影响，即每个驾驶员体验到的小镇有四种版本之一，分别为只有近端地标物、只有远端地标物、近端和远端地标物都有，或者没有地标物。驾驶员会收到实时导航指令，沿着一条路线前往目标目的地，然后在没有导航指令的情况下测试他们到达同一目的地的能力。我们发现近端地标物的存在显著改善了路线导航。然后，我们通过在驾驶员先前遇到过的相同环境中但移除地标物的情况下测试相同的驾驶员，检验了近端地标物与远端地标物之间的先前暴露的影响。在这种情况下，我们发现先前暴露于远端地标物显著改善了路线导航。目前的结果与现有的路线导航和地标物研究一致，表明这些发现可以扩展到生态相关的环境中。
