Understanding Differences in Wayfinding Strategies

Sex differences in direction giving: Are boys better than girls?

Previous research has extensively documented sex differences favoring boys in various domains of spatial cognition. However, relatively little research has examined sex differences in children's direction giving. The current study aimed to bridge this gap. A total of 143 children aged 3 to 10 years were asked to describe and recall routes from survey perspectives (via maps) and route perspectives (via videos). Significant sex effects (favoring boys) in direction-giving accuracy were found in describing route trials. However, boys and girls did not differ in the frequency of utterances encoding landmarks and direction of turns, suggesting that the quality rather than the quantity of words played a more important role in explaining sex differences. In addition, there was no sex difference in the route recall task. Although accuracy was overall higher in the map condition than in the video condition, it did not moderate sex differences. Overall, our study showed a robust sex difference in direction giving, which has important theoretical implications for understanding the development of human sex differences and critical clinical implications for designing training programs to improve children's spatial cognition.

Memory consolidation affects the interplay of place and response navigation

Navigation through space is based on memory representations of landmarks ('place') or movement sequences ('response'). Over time, memory representations transform through consolidation. However, it is unclear how the transformation affects place and response navigation in humans. In the present study, healthy adults navigated to target locations in a virtual maze. The preference for using place and response strategies and the ability to recall place and response memories were tested after a delay of one hour (n = 31), one day (n = 30), or two weeks (n = 32). The different delays captured early-phase synaptic changes, changes after one night of sleep, and long-delay changes due to the reorganization of navigation networks. Our results show that the relative contributions of place and response navigation changed as a function of time. After a short delay of up to one day, participants preferentially used a place strategy and exhibited a high degree of visual landmark exploration. After a longer delay of two weeks, place strategy use decreased significantly. Participants now equally relied on place and response strategy use and increasingly repeated previously taken paths. Further analyses indicate that response strategy use predominantly occurred as a compensatory strategy in the absence of sufficient place memory. Over time, place memory faded before response memory. We suggest that the observed shift from place to response navigation is context-dependent since detailed landmark information, which strongly relied on hippocampal function, decayed faster than sequence information, which required less detail and depended on extra-hippocampal areas. We conclude that changes in place and response navigation likely reflect the reorganization of navigation networks during systems consolidation.

Gaze shifts during wayfinding decisions

When following a route through a building or city, we must decide at every intersection in which direction to proceed. The present study investigates whether such decisions are preceded by a gradual gaze shift in the eventually chosen direction. Participants were instructed to repeatedly follow a route through a sequence of rooms by choosing, in each room, the correct door from among three possible doors. All rooms looked alike, except for a room-specific cue, which participants could associate with the direction to take. We found that on 88.9% of trials, the gaze shifted from the cue to the chosen door by a single saccade, without interim fixations. On the few trials where interim fixations occurred, their spatiotemporal characteristics differed significantly from that expected in case of a consistent shift. Both findings concordantly provide no support for the hypothesized gradual gaze shift. The infrequent interim fixations might rather serve the purpose to avoid large-amplitude saccades between cue and door.

Stress affects navigation strategies in immersive virtual reality

There are known individual differences in both the ability to learn the layout of novel environments and the flexibility of strategies for navigating known environments. However, it is unclear how navigational abilities are impacted by high-stress scenarios. Here we used immersive virtual reality (VR) to develop a novel behavioral paradigm to examine navigation under dynamically changing situations. We recruited 48 participants (24 female; ages 17-32) to navigate a virtual maze (7.5 m × 7.5 m). Participants learned the maze by moving along a fixed path past the maze's landmarks (paintings). Subsequently, participants experienced either a non-stress condition, or a high-stress condition tasking them with navigating the maze. In the high-stress condition, their initial path was blocked, the environment was darkened, threatening music was played, fog obstructed more distal views of the environment, and participants were given a time limit of 20 s with a countdown timer displayed at the top of their screen. On trials where the path was blocked, we found self-reported stress levels and distance traveled increased while trial completion rate decreased (as compared to non-stressed control trials). On unblocked stress trials, participants were less likely to take a shortcut and consequently navigated less efficiently compared to control trials. Participants with more trait spatial anxiety reported more stress and navigated less efficiently. Overall, our results suggest that navigational abilities change considerably under high-stress conditions.

The structure of cognitive strategies for wayfinding decisions

Literature proposes five distinct cognitive strategies for wayfinding decisions at intersections. Our study investigates whether those strategies rely on a generalized decision-making process, on two frame-specific processes-one in an egocentric and the other in an allocentric spatial reference frame, and/or on five strategy-specific processes. Participants took six trips along a prescribed route through five virtual mazes, each designed for decision-making by a particular strategy. We found that wayfinding accuracy on trips through a given maze correlated significantly with the accuracy on trips through another maze that was designed for a different reference frame (rbetween-frames = 0.20). Correlations were not significantly higher if the other maze was designed for the same reference frame (rwithin-frames = 0.19). However, correlations between trips through the same maze were significantly higher than those between trips through different mazes that were designed for the same reference frame (rwithin-maze = 0.52). We conclude that wayfinding decisions were based on a generalized cognitive process, as well as on strategy-specific processes, while the role of frame-specific processes-if any-was relatively smaller. Thus, the well-established dichotomy of egocentric versus allocentric spatial representations did not translate into a similar, observable dichotomy of decision-making.

The role of strategic visibility in shaping wayfinding behavior in multilevel buildings

In this paper, we explore the mutual effect of prior background expectations and visibility afforded by the 3D configuration of the physical environment on wayfinding efficiency and strategy in multilevel buildings. We perform new analyses on data from 149 participants who performed six unaided and directed wayfinding tasks in virtual buildings with varying degrees of visibility. Our findings reveal that the interaction between visibility and prior background expectations significantly affects wayfinding efficiency and strategy during between-floor wayfinding tasks. We termed this interaction effect strategic visibility, which emphasizes the importance of the strategic allocation of visibility towards actionable building elements in promoting efficient wayfinding and shaping wayfinding strategy. Our study highlights the significance of strategic visibility in promoting inclusive and accessible built environments for neurodiversity. Finally, we provide an open-source dataset that can be used to develop and test new wayfinding theories and models to advance research in the emerging field of human-building interaction.

Anxiety and Depressive Traits in the Healthy Population Does Not Affect Spatial Orientation and Navigation

The ability to navigate and orient in spatial surroundings is critical for effective daily functioning. Such ability is perturbed in clinically diagnosed mood and anxiety disorders, with patients exhibiting poor navigational skills. Here, we investigated the effects of depression and anxiety traits (not the clinical manifestation of the disorders) on the healthy population and hypothesized that greater levels of depression and anxiety traits would manifest in poorer spatial orientation skills and, in particular, with a poor ability to form mental representations of the environment, i.e., cognitive maps. We asked 1237 participants to perform a battery of spatial orientation tasks and complete two questionnaires assessing their anxiety and depression traits. Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find any correlation between participants' anxiety and depression traits and their ability to form cognitive maps. These findings may imply a significant difference between the clinical and non-clinical manifestations of anxiety and depression as affecting spatial orientation and navigational abilities.

Choice between decision-making strategies in human route-following

To follow a prescribed route, we must decide which way to turn at intersections. To do so, we can memorize either the serial order of directions or the associations between spatial cues and directions ("at the drug store, turn left"). Here, we investigate which of these two strategies is used if both are available. In Task S, all intersections looked exactly alike, and participants therefore had to use the serial order strategy to decide which way their route continued. In Task SA, each intersection displayed a unique spatial cue, and participants therefore could use either strategy. In Task A, each intersection displayed a unique cue, but the serial order of cues varied between trips, and participants therefore had to use the associative cue strategy. We found that route-following accuracy increased from trip to trip, was higher on routes with 12 rather than 18 intersections, and was higher on Task SA than on the other two tasks, both with 12 and with 18 intersections. Furthermore, participants on Task SA acquired substantial knowledge about the serial order of directions as well as about cue-direction associations, both with 12 and with 18 intersections. From this we conclude that, when both strategies were available, participants did not pick the better one but rather used both. This represents dual encoding, a phenomenon previously described for more elementary memory tasks. We further conclude that dual encoding may be implemented even if the memory load is not very high (i.e., even with only 12 intersections).

Cultural determinants of the gap between self-estimated navigation ability and wayfinding performance: evidence from 46 countries

Cognitive abilities can vary widely. Some people excel in certain skills, others struggle. However, not all those who describe themselves as gifted are. One possible influence on self-estimates is the surrounding culture. Some cultures may amplify self-assurance and others cultivate humility. Past research has shown that people in different countries can be grouped into a set of consistent cultural clusters with similar values and tendencies, such as attitudes to masculinity or individualism. Here we explored whether such cultural dimensions might relate to the extent to which populations in 46 countries overestimate or underestimate their cognitive abilities in the domain of spatial navigation. Using the Sea Hero Quest navigation test and a large sample (N = 383,187) we found cultural clusters of countries tend to be similar in how they self-rate ability relative to their actual performance. Across the world population sampled, higher self-ratings were associated with better performance. However, at the national level, higher self-ratings as a nation were not associated with better performance as a nation. Germanic and Near East countries were found to be most overconfident in their abilities and Nordic countries to be most under-confident in their abilities. Gender stereotypes may play a role in mediating this pattern, with larger national positive attitudes to male stereotyped roles (Hofstede's masculinity dimension) associated with a greater overconfidence in performance at the national level. We also replicate, with higher precision than prior studies, evidence that older men tend to overestimate their navigation skill more than other groups. These findings give insight into how culture and demographics may impact self-estimates of our abilities.

Cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with fMRI signal in right cerebellum lobule VIIa Crus I and II during spatial navigation in older adult women

Spatial navigation is a cognitive skill critical for accomplishing daily goal-directed behavior in a complex environment; however, older adults exhibit marked decline in navigation performance with age. Neuroprotective interventions that enhance the functional integrity of navigation-linked brain regions, such as those in the medial temporal lobe memory system, may preserve spatial navigation performance in older adults. Importantly, a well-established body of literature suggests that cardiorespiratory fitness has measurable effects on neurobiological integrity in the medial temporal lobes, as well as in other brain areas implicated in spatial navigation, such as the precuneus and cerebellum. However, whether cardiorespiratory fitness modulates brain activity in these regions during navigation in older adults remains unknown. Thus, the primary objective of the current study was to examine cardiorespiratory fitness as a modulator of fMRI activity in navigation-linked brain regions in cognitively healthy older adults. To accomplish this objective, cognitively intact participants (N = 22, aged 60-80 years) underwent cardiorespiratory fitness testing to estimate maximal oxygen uptake ( V · O_2max) and underwent whole-brain high-resolution fMRI while performing a virtual reality navigation task. Our older adult sample demonstrated significant fMRI signal in the right and left retrosplenial cortex, right precuneus, right and left inferior parietal cortex, right and left cerebellum lobule VIIa Crus I and II, right fusiform gyrus, right parahippocampal cortex, right lingual gyrus, and right hippocampus during encoding of a virtual environment. Most importantly, in women but not men (N = 16), cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with fMRI activity in the right cerebellum lobule VIIa Crus I and II, but not other navigation-linked brain areas. These findings suggest that the influence of cardiorespiratory fitness on brain function extends beyond the hippocampus, as observed in other work, to the cerebellum lobule VIIa Crus I and II, a component of the cerebellum that has recently been linked to cognition and more specifically, spatial processing.

Testing a Model of Human Spatial Navigation Attitudes towards Global Navigation Satellite Systems

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) can provide better data quality for different purposes; however, some age groups might lie outside its use. Understanding the barriers to its adoption is of interest in different fields. This work aims at developing a measurement instrument of the adoption attitudes towards this technology and examining the relationship of variables such as age and gender. A UTAUT model was tested on 350 participants. The main results can be summarised as follows: (i) the proposed GNSS scale on human spatial navigation attitudes towards geopositioning technology showed optimal psychometric properties; (ii) although statistically significant differences were found in the Wayfinding Questionnaire (WQ) between men and women, these did not reach the level of statistical significance for the scores on attitudes towards GNSS; (iii) by testing a model on human spatial navigation attitudes towards geopositioning technology, it was possible to show a higher relationship with age in women.