In two virtual spatial-navigation experiments, human participants were trained to find a hidden goal (an “internet connection” point) that was located adjacent to one of the right-angled corners of a cross-shaped virtual environment. The location of the goal was defined solely with respect to the geometry of the environmental structure. Training trials started from a single central start location (Experiment 1) or from multiple start locations over two, four or sixteen training trials (Experiment 2). Following training, participants were placed onto the outside of the same environment and asked to again find the connection point (which, unbeknown to participants, was removed) during a single test-trial. The results from both experiments revealed that participants spent more time searching in regions on the outside of the environment that were closest to the location where the hidden goal was position during the previous training stage. In contrast, participants spent very little time searching in regions whose visual appearance matched those regions that contained the hidden goal during training. These results reproduce the findings from previous research which supports the idea of an allocentric encoding of the shape of the environment during navigation, and further implies that this encoding is relatively resilient to manipulations that might be expected to undermine it.
Cross-Domain Associations Between Motor Ability, Independent Exploration, and Large-Scale Spatial Navigation; Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Williams Syndrome, and Typical Development
