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Research on the existence of cognitive maps and on the cognitive processes that support effective navigation has often focused on functioning across individuals. However, there are pronounced individual differences in navigation proficiency, which need to be explained and which can illuminate our understanding of cognitive maps and effective navigation. Using a virtual environment involving 2 routes (Virtual Silcton, a desktop virtual environment; Weisberg, Schinazi, Newcombe, Shipley, & Epstein, 2014), we divided people into 3 groups based on their within-route and between-route pointing accuracy: integrators, non-integrators, and imprecise navigators. In Study 1, we found that imprecise navigators have lower spatial and verbal working memory, which may limit their ability to build accurate within-route representations. We also found that integrators maintain excellent memories of buildings as categorized by route membership, possibly supporting the idea of hierarchical representations of the environment. In Study 2, we assessed preferences regarding place and route learning using a virtual version of the rodent T-maze (Marchette, Bakker, & Shelton, 2011). Integrators found more goals overall, and although they did not have an overall preference for a place-based strategy, integrators who did choose a place-based strategy found more goals. The opposite was true for imprecise navigators. In Study 3, we added a monetary incentive for accuracy to evaluate whether increased motivation leads to fewer participants classified as imprecise, but found no significant change in the distribution of performance. These data have theoretical implications for the cognitive map hypothesis, and practical implications for improving navigational functioning. A one-size-fits-all approach may fit none.

Although the hippocampus is implicated in both spatial navigation and associative memory, very little is known about whether individual differences in the 2 domains covary. People who prefer to navigate using a hippocampal-dependent place strategy may show better performance on associative memory tasks than those who prefer a caudate-dependent response strategy (Bohbot, Gupta, Banner, & Dahmani, 2011), but not all studies suggest such an effect (Woollett & Maguire, 2009, 2012). Here we tested nonexpert young adults and found that preference for a place strategy positively correlated with spatial (object-location) associative memory performance but did not correlate with nonspatial (face-name) associative memory performance. Importantly, these correlations differed from each other, indicating that the relation between navigation strategy and associative memory is specific to the spatial domain. In addition, the 2 associative memory tasks significantly correlated, suggesting that object-location memory taps into processes relevant to both hippocampal-dependent navigation and nonspatial associative memory. Our findings also suggest that individual differences in spatial associative memory may account for some of the variance in navigation strategies.

There are marked individual differences in the formation of cognitive maps both in the real world and in virtual environments (VE; e.g., Blajenkova, Motes, & Kozhevnikov, 2005; Chai & Jacobs, 2010; Ishikawa & Montello, 2006; Wen, Ishikawa, & Sato, 2011). These differences, however, are poorly understood and can be difficult to assess except by self-report methods. VEs offer an opportunity to collect objective data in environments that can be controlled and standardized. In this study, we designed a VE consisting of buildings arrayed along 2 separated routes, allowing for differentiation of between-route and within-route representation. Performance on a pointing task and a model-building task correlated with self-reported navigation ability. However, for participants with lower levels of between-route pointing, the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction scale (Hegarty, Richardson, Montello, Lovelace, & Subbiah, 2002) did not predict individual differences in accuracy when pointing to buildings within the same route. Thus, we confirm the existence of individual differences in the ability to construct a cognitive map of an environment, identify both the strengths and the potential weaknesses of self-report measures, and isolate a dimension that may help to characterize individual differences more completely. The VE designed for this study provides an objective behavioral measure of navigation ability that can be widely used as a research tool.

The relationship between emergent spatial understanding in different cognitive domains, including navigation and language, has rarely been studied using methods that allow for the examination of individual differences. In this study the authors explored emergent place learning and its relationship to early spatial language, namely prepositions, in 16- to 24-month-old children. Children were tested using a spatial task adapted from the Morris water maze, and the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory. In the place-learning task, children were placed in a circular enclosure and a puzzle was hidden under the floor at one location. Before each trial, children were disoriented and placed in the maze at a different starting position. Their search types and success at finding the puzzle were coded. As expected, older children demonstrated more spatial searches and better place-learning skills (finding the goal), as well as greater overall expressive vocabulary. Place learning and language did not correlate with each other once age was partialled, with one crucial exception: a theoretically predicted correlation between prepositions and goal localization. (Contains 2 tables and 5 figures.)

The aim of this issue is to take stock of cognitive science of human variation in the field of spatial navigation, an important domain in which debates have often assumed an invariant human mind. Addressing the challenge of individual differences requires cognitive scientists to change their practices in several ways. First, we need to consider how to design measures and paradigms that have adequate psychometric characteristics. Second, using reliable, efficient, and valid measures, we need to examine how people vary from time to time, both in the short run due to emotions, such as stress or time pressure, and in the longer run, due to training or living in physical environments that require wayfinding skills. Third, we need to study people different from the traditional college participants, including variations in age, gender, education, culture, physical environment, and possible interactions among these variables. This issue assesses how human spatial navigation differs: within individuals across short‐term variations in mood or stress, and between individuals across variations in age, gender, education, culture, and physical environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does gesturing during route learning relate to subsequent spatial performance? We examined the relationship between gestures produced spontaneously while studying route directions and spatial representations of the navigated environment. Participants studied route directions, then navigated those routes from memory in a virtual environment, and finally had their memory of the environment assessed. We found that, for navigators with low spatial perspective-taking performance on the Spatial Orientation Test, more gesturing from a survey perspective predicted more accurate memory following navigation. Thus, co-thought gestures accompanying route learning relate to performance selectively, depending on the gesturers’ spatial ability and the perspective of their gestures. Survey gestures may help some individuals visualize an overall route that they can retain in memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the existence of cognitive maps and on the cognitive processes that support effective navigation has often focused on functioning across individuals. However, there are pronounced individual differences in navigation proficiency, which need to be explained and which can illuminate our understanding of cognitive maps and effective navigation. Using a virtual environment involving 2 routes (Virtual Silcton, a desktop virtual environment; Weisberg, Schinazi, Newcombe, Shipley, & Epstein, 2014), we divided people into 3 groups based on their within-route and between-route pointing accuracy: integrators, non-integrators, and imprecise navigators. In Study 1, we found that imprecise navigators have lower spatial and verbal working memory, which may limit their ability to build accurate within-route representations. We also found that integrators maintain excellent memories of buildings as categorized by route membership, possibly supporting the idea of hierarchical representations of the environment. In Study 2, we assessed preferences regarding place and route learning using a virtual version of the rodent T-maze (Marchette, Bakker, & Shelton, 2011). Integrators found more goals overall, and although they did not have an overall preference for a place-based strategy, integrators who did choose a place-based strategy found more goals. The opposite was true for imprecise navigators. In Study 3, we added a monetary incentive for accuracy to evaluate whether increased motivation leads to fewer participants classified as imprecise, but found no significant change in the distribution of performance. These data have theoretical implications for the cognitive map hypothesis, and practical implications for improving navigational functioning. A one-size-fits-all approach may fit none. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the hippocampus is implicated in both spatial navigation and associative memory, very little is known about whether individual differences in the 2 domains covary. People who prefer to navigate using a hippocampal-dependent place strategy may show better performance on associative memory tasks than those who prefer a caudate-dependent response strategy (Bohbot, Gupta, Banner, & Dahmani, 2011), but not all studies suggest such an effect (Woollett & Maguire, 2009, 2012). Here we tested nonexpert young adults and found that preference for a place strategy positively correlated with spatial (object-location) associative memory performance but did not correlate with nonspatial (face-name) associative memory performance. Importantly, these correlations differed from each other, indicating that the relation between navigation strategy and associative memory is specific to the spatial domain. In addition, the 2 associative memory tasks significantly correlated, suggesting that object-location memory taps into processes relevant to both hippocampal-dependent navigation and nonspatial associative memory. Our findings also suggest that individual differences in spatial associative memory may account for some of the variance in navigation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]