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Variations in Cognitive Maps: Understanding Individual Differences in Navigation
- Source :
-
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition . May 2014 40(3):669-682. - Publication Year :
- 2014
-
Abstract
- 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.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 0278-7393
- Volume :
- 40
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- ERIC
- Journal :
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- EJ1056529
- Document Type :
- Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035261