Acquiring and using survey knowledge in virtual environments.

Richardson, Anthony E.; Montello, Daniel R., Department of Geography
& Hegarty, Mary, Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Barbara

This study assessed people's ability to acquire and use spatial knowledge in a desktop virtual environment (VE). Participants learned the layout of two paths with different amounts of learning exposure. The initial facing orientation when learning the environment was also varied. Following VE exposure, participants returned to the environment to make inter-landmark direction estimates and then drew sketch maps of the environment. Pointing performance deteriorated after multiple turns, whereas sketch maps suggested a survey level representation. In addition, pointing performance for one path was better from one orientation (corresponding to the starting orientation). This alignment effect suggests that starting orientation and overall structure of the VE may be important factors in determining the level of spatial knowledge that can be acquired and its use. An increase in learning exposure did not improve pointing performance, but did improve sketch map performance, suggesting that the knowledge of the overall structure of the VE was increasing. This dissociation between pointing and sketch map performance might be due to difficulty updating egocentric orientation in non-immersive VE systems, which do not allow for body rotations.