Individual Differences in the Encoding Processes of Egocentric and Allocentric Survey Knowledge

Active and passive exploration for spatial knowledge acquisition: A meta-analysis

Literature reported mixed evidence on whether active exploration benefits spatial knowledge acquisition over passive exploration. Active spatial learning typically involves at least physical control of one's movement or navigation decision-making, while passive participants merely observe during exploration. To quantify the effects of active exploration in learning large-scale, unfamiliar environments, we analysed previous findings with the multi-level meta-analytical model. Potential moderators were identified and examined for their contributions to the variability in effect sizes. Of the 128 effect sizes retrieved from 33 experiments, we observed a small to moderate advantage of active exploration over passive observation. Important moderators include gender composition, decision-making, types of spatial knowledge, and matched visual information. We discussed the implications of the results along with the limitations.

Metacognition and sense of agency

Intelligent agents need to understand how they can change the world, and how they cannot change it, in order to make rational decisions for their forthcoming actions, and to adapt to their current environment. Previous research on the sense of agency, based largely on subjective ratings, failed to dissociate the sensitivity of sense of agency (i.e., the extent to which individual sense of agency tracks actual instrumental control over external events) from judgment criteria (i.e., the extent to which individuals self-attribute agency independent of their actual influence over external events). Furthermore, few studies have examined whether individuals have metacognitive access to the internal processes underlying the sense of agency. We developed a novel two-alternative-forced choice (2FAC) control detection task, in which participants identified which of two visual objects was more strongly controlled by their voluntary movement. The actual level of control over the target object was manipulated by adjusting the proportion of its motion that was driven by the participant's movement, compared to the proportion driven by a pre-recorded movement by another agent, using a staircase to hold 2AFC control detection accuracy at 70%. Participants identified which of the two visual objects they controlled, and also made a binary confidence judgment regarding their control detection judgment. We calculated a bias-free measure of first-order sensitivity (d') for detection control at any given level of participant's own movement. The proportion of pre-recorded movements determined by the stairecase could then be used as an index of control detection ability. We identified two distinct processes underlying first-order detection of control: one based on instantaneous sensory predictions for the current movement, and one based on detection of a regular motor-visual relation across a series of movements. Further, we found large individual differences across 40 particpants in metacognitive sensitivity (meta-d') even though first-order sensitivity of control detection was well controlled. Using structural equation modelling (SEM), we showed that metacognition was negatively correlated with the predictive process component of detection of control. This result is inconsistent with previous hypotheses that detection of control relies on metacognitive monitoring of a predictive circuit. Instead, it suggests that predictive mechanisms that compute sense of agency may operate unconsciously.

Improved Spatial Knowledge Acquisition through Sensory Augmentation

Sensory augmentation provides novel opportunities to broaden our knowledge of human perception through external sensors that record and transmit information beyond natural perception. To assess whether such augmented senses affect the acquisition of spatial knowledge during navigation, we trained a group of 27 participants for six weeks with an augmented sense for cardinal directions called the feelSpace belt. Then, we recruited a control group that did not receive the augmented sense and the corresponding training. All 53 participants first explored the Westbrook virtual reality environment for two and a half hours spread over five sessions before assessing their spatial knowledge in four immersive virtual reality tasks measuring cardinal, route, and survey knowledge. We found that the belt group acquired significantly more accurate cardinal and survey knowledge, which was measured in pointing accuracy, distance, and rotation estimates. Interestingly, the augmented sense also positively affected route knowledge, although to a lesser degree. Finally, the belt group reported a significant increase in the use of spatial strategies after training, while the groups' ratings were comparable at baseline. The results suggest that six weeks of training with the feelSpace belt led to improved survey and route knowledge acquisition. Moreover, the findings of our study could inform the development of assistive technologies for individuals with visual or navigational impairments, which may lead to enhanced navigation skills and quality of life.

Individual Differences and Skill Training in Cognitive Mapping: How and Why People Differ

Spatial ability plays important roles in academic learning and everyday activities. A type of spatial thinking that is of particular significance to people's daily lives is cognitive mapping, that is, the process of acquiring, representing, and using knowledge about spatial environments. However, the skill of cognitive mapping shows large individual differences, and the task of spatial orientation and navigation poses great difficulty for some people. In this article, I look at the motivation and findings in the research into spatial knowledge acquisition from an individual differences perspective. I also discuss major implications of the existence of large individual differences, particularly the possibility of improving cognitive mapping by training and adjusting navigation assistance to the wide variations in spatial aptitudes and preferences among people.

Continuous theta-burst stimulation over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex impairs visuospatial working memory performance in medium load task

Previous studies have shown that visuospatial working memory (VSWM) plays a key role in the encoding and processing of visuospatial information. More importantly, there is evidence suggesting the role of frontal and parietal cortical areas in VSWM and especially, the influence of the frontal cortex in regulating goal-directed behavior. However, the functional role of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) in visuospatial working memory is still unclear. Here, we noninvasively modulated the rDLPFC activity using continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS), with the vertex as the control site. Our study aimed to investigate the effects of cTBS over rDLPFC on working memory task (2- and 4-back) performance. Working memory performance was assessed at the baseline and after stimulation. We observed that the working memory performance as measured by discriminability index was impaired after cTBS over rDLPFC in 2-back task, whereas 4-back task performance was not significantly affected. More so, there was no effect on performance after cTBS over the vertex, suggesting a functional role of rDLPFC in VSWM. Our findings demonstrate the involvement of the rDLPFC in VSWM as well as the load-dependent effect of working memory performance. Taken together, our work constitutes a useful addition to the literature and underscores the effectiveness and efficiency of noninvasive brain stimulation in modulating neuro-cognitive activity.

Navigation ability in patients with acquired brain injury: A population-wide online study

The ability to travel independently is a vital part of an autonomous life. It is important to investigate to what degree people with acquired brain injuries (ABI) suffer from navigation impairments. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of objective and subjective navigation impairments in the population of ABI patients. A large-scale online navigation study was conducted with 435 ABI patients and 7474 healthy controls. Participants studied a route through a virtual environment and completed 5 navigation tasks that assessed distinct functional components of navigation ability. Subjective navigation abilities were assessed using the Wayfinding questionnaire. Patients were matched to controls using propensity score matching. Overall, performance on objective navigation tasks was significantly lower in the ABI population compared to the healthy controls. The landmark recognition, route continuation and allocentric location knowledge tasks were most vulnerable to brain injury. The prevalence of subjective navigation impairments was higher in the ABI population compared to the healthy controls. In conclusion, a substantial proportion (39.1%) of the ABI population reports navigation impairments. We advocate the evaluation of objective and subjective navigation ability in neuropsychological assessments of ABI patients.

Chatting While Walking Does Not Interfere with Topographical Working Memory

In the present study, we employed the dual task technique to explore the role of language in topographical working memory when landmarks are present along the path. We performed three experiments to mainly test the effects of language but also motor, spatial motor and spatial environment interferences on topographical working memory. We aimed to clarify both the role of language in navigational working memory per se and the extent to which spatial language interferes with the main task more than the other types of interference. Specifically, in the three experiments we investigated the differences due to different verbal interference sources (i.e., articulatory suppression of nonsense syllables; right and left, up and bottom; and north, south, east and west). The main hypothesis was that the use of spatial language affected more landmark-based topographical working memory than both the verbalization of nonsense syllables and other types of interference. Results show no effect of spatial language, only spatial environmental interference affected the navigational working memory performance. In general, this might depend on the scarce role of spatial language in online navigational working memory tasks. Specifically, language is more important for learning and retrieval of the cognitive map. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Improving cognitive mapping by training for people with a poor sense of direction

The skill of spatial learning and orientation is fundamental in humans and differs widely among individuals. Despite its importance, however, the malleability of this skill through practice has scarcely been studied empirically, in contrast to psychometric spatial ability. Thus, this article examines the possibility of improving the accuracy of configurational understanding of the environment by training. A total of 40 adults with a poor sense of direction participated in the experiment; and were randomly assigned to either a condition in which they received feedback only or a condition in which they additionally practiced allocentric spatial updating. Participants walked one route in each session, once a week for 6 weeks, and conducted spatial tasks designed to assess their knowledge of the route. A total of 20 people with an average sense of direction also participated as a comparison group. Results showed that training in allocentric spatial updating improved the accuracy of direction estimates, although the size of the effect was limited: the improvement was not large enough to equate the performance in the groups with a poor versus average sense of direction. The two groups, however, did not differ in spatial skill in mental rotation or path integration. Feedback was effective for improving accuracy in straight-line distance estimates and sketch maps: repeated trials with feedback led to improved accuracy by the sixth session to a level comparable to the group with an average sense of direction. The results show that flexible translation between viewer-centered and environment-centered representations is difficult and not readily trainable, and provide insights into the nature of individual differences in large-scale environmental cognition.

The Acquisition of Survey Knowledge by Individuals With Down Syndrome

People with Down syndrome often exhibit deficiencies in wayfinding activities, particularly route learning (e.g., Courbois et al., 2013; Davis et al., 2014; Farran et al., 2015). Evidence concerning more sophisticated survey learning has been sparse. In the research reported here, two experiments are reported that evaluated survey learning of youth with DS and typically developing children (TD) matched on mental age. In Experiment 1, participants learned two overlapping routes consisting of three turns each through a virtual environment depicting 9 square city blocks. Following acquisition, they were tested on multiple measures of survey knowledge: finding a shortcut, identifying the direction of landmarks not currently visible from their location in the environment, and recognizing a bird's-eye representation of the overall environment. Under these conditions, which should provide relatively optimal opportunities for survey learning, the participants with DS performed comparably to TD participants matched on non-verbal ability on all of our measures of survey learning. Hence, we concluded that people with DS can acquire some survey knowledge when tasked with learning a small environment and given the opportunity to do so. In Experiment 2, the experimenter navigated participants through a large, relatively complex, virtual environment along a circuitous path, beginning and ending at a target landmark. Then, the participants were placed at a pre-specified location in the environment that they had viewed previously and instructed to navigate to the same target (a door) using the shortest possible path from their current location. They completed the task three times: once after being shown the environment one time, once after three exposures, and once after five exposures. Results indicated that the participants with DS exhibited significantly less skill at identifying the shortcut than did the TD participants, with differences emerging as the number of exposures increased. Participants with DS were also less able to recall landmarks at the end of the experiment. Overall, however, the performance of both groups was relatively poor in both experiments - with the performance of participants with DS being worse as conditions became less optimal. These results were discussed in terms of underlying mechanisms that may account for variations in survey learning as environmental complexity increases.

Successful navigation: the influence of task goals and working memory

There is still a need to analyze the factors that enhance navigation accuracy. This study aims to examine how success in environment learning relates to task goals and WM. A total of 90 undergraduates (46 females) learned a route from a virtual navigation experience after being given a goal that involved tracing the route (a route-based goal) or finding a shortcut (a survey-based goal). The two groups thus formed were each divided into three subgroups according to the dual-task paradigm: one only navigated (control condition); the other two did so while simultaneously performing a visuo-spatial or verbal secondary task. Afterwards, participants traced the previously seen route and found a shortcut. Several visuo-spatial and verbal WM tasks were also administered. The results showed that participants given a route-based goal performed better in the route-tracing task; and those given a survey-based goal were better at finding shortcuts. An influence of WM was also shown: higher WM (visuo-spatial and verbal) ability significantly reduced the number of route-tracing errors made while performing a secondary visuo-spatial task, regardless of the goal, whereas no such effects emerged for shortcut finding. These results offer new insight on how task goals and WM support successful navigation.

Event memory uniquely predicts memory for large-scale space

When a person explores a new environment, they begin to construct a spatial representation of it. Doing so is important for navigating and remaining oriented. How does one's ability to learn a new environment relate to one's ability to remember experiences in that environment? Here, 208 adults experienced a first-person videotaped route, and then completed a spatial map construction task. They also took tests of general cognitive abilities (working memory, laboratory episodic memory, processing speed, general knowledge) and of memory for familiar, everyday activities (event memory). Regression analyses revealed that event memory (memory for everyday events and their temporal structure), laboratory episodic memory (memory for words and pictures) and gender were unique predictors of spatial memory. These results implicate the processing of temporal structure and organization as an important cognitive ability in large-scale spatial-memory-from-route experience. Accounting for the temporal structure of people's experience while learning the layout of novel spaces may improve interventions for addressing navigation problems.

Spatial mental representations: the influence of age on route learning from maps and navigation

Experiencing an environment by navigating in it or reading a map (route and survey views, respectively) is a typical activity of everyday life. Previous research has demonstrated that aging coincides with a decline in spatial learning, but it is unclear whether this depends to some degree on how the learning conditions relate to the method used to assess the recall. The present study aims to shed light on this issue. Forty-six young, 43 young-old and 38 old-old adults learned outdoor environments from a map and a video, then performed sketch map and route repetition tasks. Participants were assessed on their visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM), and reported their self-assessed visuo-spatial inclinations. The results showed that young adults completed the sketch maps more accurately after learning from a map rather than a video. The same was true of the young-old participants (but not of the old-old), though their performance was not as good as the younger group's. The learning condition had no effect on the route repetition task, however, and only age-related differences emerged, with both older groups performing less well than the young adults. After controlling for learning condition and age group, VSWM and participants' reported propensity to explore places predicted their accuracy in both types of spatial task. The overall results, discussed in the light of spatial cognitive and aging models, show that learning condition (combined with recall tasks) and visuo-spatial factors influence spatial representations, even in aging.

How sense-of-direction and learning intentionality relate to spatial knowledge acquisition in the environment

People’s impression of their own “sense-of-direction” (SOD) is related to their ability to effectively find their way through environments, such as neighborhoods and cities, but is also related to the speed and accuracy with which they learn new environments. In the current literature, it is unclear whether the cognitive skills underlying SOD require intentional cognitive effort to produce accurate knowledge of a new environment. The cognitive skills underlying SOD could exert their influence automatically—without conscious intention—or they might need to be intentionally and effortfully applied. Determining the intentionality of acquiring environmental spatial knowledge would shed light on whether individuals with a poor SOD can be trained to use the skill set of an individual with good SOD, thereby improving their wayfinding and spatial learning. Therefore, this research investigates the accuracy of spatial knowledge acquisition during a walk through a previously unfamiliar neighborhood by individuals with differing levels of self-assessed SOD, as a function of whether their spatial learning was intentional or incidental. After walking a route through the neighborhood, participants completed landmark, route, and survey knowledge tasks. SOD was related to the accuracy of acquired spatial knowledge, as has been found previously. However, learning intentionality did not affect spatial knowledge acquisition, neither as a main effect nor in interaction with SOD. This research reveals that while the accuracy of spatial knowledge acquired via direct travel through an environment is validly measured by self-reported SOD, the spatial skills behind a good SOD appear to operate with or without intentional application.

The role of visual and spatial working memory in forming mental models derived from survey and route descriptions

This study examines the involvement of spatial and visual working memory (WM) in the construction of flexible spatial models derived from survey and route descriptions. Sixty young adults listened to environment descriptions, 30 from a survey perspective and the other 30 from a route perspective, while they performed spatial (spatial tapping [ST]) and visual (dynamic visual noise [DVN]) secondary tasks - believed to overload the spatial and visual working memory (WM) components, respectively - or no secondary task (control, C). Their mental representations of the environment were tested by free recall and a verification test with both route and survey statements. Results showed that, for both recall tasks, accuracy was worse in the ST than in the C or DVN conditions. In the verification test, the effect of both ST and DVN was a decreasing accuracy for sentences testing spatial relations from the opposite perspective to the one learnt than if the perspective was the same; only ST had a stronger interference effect than the C condition for sentences from the opposite perspective from the one learnt. Overall, these findings indicate that both visual and spatial WM, and especially the latter, are involved in the construction of perspective-flexible spatial models.

How to Best Name a Place? Facilitation and Inhibition of Route Learning Due to Descriptive and Arbitrary Location Labels

Establishing verbal memory traces for non-verbal stimuli was reported to facilitate or inhibit memory for the non-verbal stimuli. We show that these effects are also observed in a domain not indicated before—wayfinding. Fifty-three participants followed a guided route in a virtual environment. They were asked to remember half of the intersections by relying on the visual impression only. At the other 50% of the intersections, participants additionally heard a place name, which they were asked to memorize. For testing, participants were teleported to the intersections and were asked to indicate the subsequent direction of the learned route. In Experiment 1, intersections' names were arbitrary (i.e., not related to the visual impression). Here, participants performed more accurately at unnamed intersections. In Experiment 2, intersections' names were descriptive and participants' route memory was more accurate at named intersections. Results have implications for naming places in a city and for wayfinding aids.

Out of my real body: cognitive neuroscience meets eating disorders

Clinical psychology is starting to explain eating disorders (ED) as the outcome of the interaction among cognitive, socio-emotional and interpersonal elements. In particular two influential models—the revised cognitive-interpersonal maintenance model and the transdiagnostic cognitive behavioral theory—identified possible key predisposing and maintaining factors. These models, even if very influential and able to provide clear suggestions for therapy, still are not able to provide answers to several critical questions: why do not all the individuals with obsessive compulsive features, anxious avoidance or with a dysfunctional scheme for self-evaluation develop an ED? What is the role of the body experience in the etiology of these disorders? In this paper we suggest that the path to a meaningful answer requires the integration of these models with the recent outcomes of cognitive neuroscience. First, our bodily representations are not just a way to map an external space but the main tool we use to generate meaning, organize our experience, and shape our social identity. In particular, we will argue that our bodily experience evolves over time by integrating six different representations of the body characterized by specific pathologies—body schema (phantom limb), spatial body (unilateral hemi-neglect), active body (alien hand syndrome), personal body (autoscopic phenomena), objectified body (xenomelia) and body image (body dysmorphia). Second, these representations include either schematic (allocentric) or perceptual (egocentric) contents that interact within the working memory of the individual through the alignment between the retrieved contents from long-term memory and the ongoing egocentric contents from perception. In this view EDs may be the outcome of an impairment in the ability of updating a negative body representation stored in autobiographical memory (allocentric) with real-time sensorimotor and proprioceptive data (egocentric).