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Research on spatial navigation is essential to understanding how mobile species adapt to their environments. Such research increasingly uses virtual environments (VEs) because, although VE has drawbacks, it allows for standardization of procedures, precision in measuring behaviors, ease in introducing variation, and cross-investigator comparability. Developmental researchers have used a wide range of VE testing methods, including desktop computers, gaming consoles, virtual reality, and phone applications. We survey the paradigms to guide researchers' choices, organizing them by their characteristics using a framework proposed by Girard (2022) in which navigation is reactive or deliberative, and may be tied to sensory input or not. This organization highlights what representations each paradigm indicates. VE tools have enriched our picture of the development of navigation, but much research remains to be done, e.g., determining retest reliability, comparing performance on different paradigms, validating performance against real-world behavior and open sharing. Reliable and valid assessments available on open-science repositories are essential for work on the development of navigation, its neural bases, and its implications for other cognitive domains. [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]