The development of landmarks in spatial memory: The role of differential experience

doi:10.1016/0022-0965(87)90037-3

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Volume 44, Issue 3, December 1987, Pages 317-334

https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-0965(87)90037-3 Get rights and content

Abstract

To assess how differential experience with objects in a spatial array might serve to establish relative landmarks within the array, first and fifth graders learned models of a town and farm under two conditions. In a homogeneous condition, all elements in the array were visited an equal number of times. In a landmark condition, the relative landmark status of an element was established by distributing the same total number of visits unequally across the elements. The effects of such landmarks on spatial memory were assessed both in reconstructions of the entire array and by pairwise distance estimations. The landmark condition led to a general improvement in spatial recall accuracy as well as providing a relative landmark within the array to help organize the space. The results suggest that different levels of experience (controlling for overall experience and object salience) can establish elements as relative landmarks in spatial memory. Although there was clear developmental improvement in spatial memory, the specific landmark effects were similar for both first and fifth graders.

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Citation Excerpt :
Research has documented that familiarity with an environment improves participants’ ability to navigate and orient (Ruddle, Payne, & Jones, 1997). Presson (1987) and Siegel and White (1975) have argued that substantial familiarity with an environment leads to the development of orientation free survey knowledge. It would again extend our understanding of how the stereotype manipulation affects a more difficult task if we were to test the participants in an environment with which they were unfamiliar.
Two experiments examined the interaction of task difficulty and stereotype threat in a spatial orientation task. Having explored the exterior and interior of a virtual building, participants were placed in a room with an external or internal view and asked to face a previously seen but occluded external target cue. In the internal room participants could use spatial updating to track their position in terms of the target cue, and in the external room they could also use the allocentric spatial relationship between the target cue and a visible external cue. Participants performed better in the external room, illustrating spatial updating is more difficult than allocentric array learning. In Experiment 1, participants were informed that they were likely to perform better, worse or the same as members of the opposite sex. Overall males performed better than females, but males given the threat statement performed worst. There was no difference between female groups. Experiment 2a, reduced the difficulty of the task by including internal orienting cues. Females with the orientation cues performed better than females without orientation cues and the same as males. In Experiment 2b, with orientation cues present, there was a significant effect of stereotype threat for both males and females but only in the more difficult internal room trial. The results suggest gender stereotype threats affect spatial orientation but only at an appropriate level of task difficulty.
Visual search in dynamic 3D visualisations of unstructured picture collections
2010, Interacting with Computers
We present two empirical studies of visual search in dynamic 3D visualisations of large, randomly ordered, photo collections. The aim is to assess the possible effects of geometrical distortions on visual search effectiveness, efficiency and comfort, by comparing the influence of two perspective representations of photo collections on participants’ performance results and subjective judgments. Thumbnails of the 1000 or so photographs in each collection are plastered on the lateral surface of a vertical cylinder, either on the inside (inner view, IV) or on the outside (outer view, OV). IV and OV suggest two different interaction metaphors: locomotion in a virtual space (IV) versus manipulation of a virtual object (OV). They also implement different perspective distortions: enlargement and distortion of lateral columns (IV) versus enlargement of central columns and dwindling plus distortion of lateral columns (OV). Presentation of results focus on the second study, S2, which involved 20 participants and offered them strictly identical interaction facilities with the two views, unlike the initial pilot study, S1 (8 participants and slightly different interaction facilities between the two views).
Participants in both studies were experienced computer users (average age: 25.15 years, SD: 3.13). They performed two types of basic visual tasks that are carried out repeatedly while navigating photo collections: (i) searching for a photo meeting specific, visual and thematic, criteria, the photo and its location in the collection being unknown to participants (ST1) and (ii) looking for a visually familiar photo, the location of the photo being familiar to participants (ST2).
According to post-experiment questionnaires and debriefings, all participants in S2 save one judged both 3D views positively in reference to standard 2D visualisations. Half of them preferred IV over OV, four appreciated OV better, and six expressed no clear opinion. Preferences were mainly motivated by the effects of perspective distortions on thumbnail visibility. They were barely influenced by interaction metaphors (e.g., the feeling of immersion induced by IV).
Despite large inter-individual differences in performance, a majority of participants carried out ST1 tasks more effectively and efficiently with IV than with OV, as regards error rates (statistically significant difference) and search times (tendency). Performance results for ST2 tasks were similar with the two views, due, probably, to the simplicity and brevity of ST2 tasks. Perspective distortions seem to have exerted less influence on participants’ visual strategies than horizontal scrolling, a dynamic feature common to both views. Qualitative analyses of participants’ behaviours suggest that IV has the potential to support spatial memory better than OV, presumably thanks to the locomotion metaphor.
These results indicate that perspective views have the potential to facilitate and improve visual search in unstructured picture collections provided that distortions are adapted to users’ individual visual capabilities. Further research is needed to better understand: (i) the actual relations between visual exploration strategies and geometrical properties of perspective visualisations and (ii) the influence of the manipulation and locomotion metaphors on spatial memory. This knowledge is necessary to further improve the comfort and effectiveness of visual search in large unstructured picture collections, using 3D visualisations.
Orientational manoeuvres in the dark: Dissociating allocentric and egocentric influences on spatial memory
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Subjects in a darkroom saw an array of five phosphorescent objects on a circular table and, after a short delay, indicated which object had been moved. During the delay the subject, the table or a phosphorescent landmark external to the array was moved (a rotation about the centre of the table) either alone or together. The subject then had to indicate which one of the five objects had been moved. A fully factorial design was used to detect the use of three types of representations of object location: (i) visual snapshots; (ii) egocentric representations updated by self-motion; and (iii) representations relative to the external cue. Improved performance was seen whenever the test array was oriented consistently with any of these stored representations. The influence of representations (i) and (ii) replicates previous work. The influence of representation (iii) is a novel finding which implies that allocentric representations play a role in spatial memory, even over short distances and times. The effect of the external cue was greater when initially experienced as stable. Females out-performed males except when the array was consistent with self-motion but not visual snapshots. These results enable a simple egocentric model of spatial memory to be extended to address large-scale navigation, including the effects of allocentric knowledge, landmark stability and gender.
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2004, Learning and Motivation
Common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus jacchus), human children, and human adults learned to find a goal that was located in the center of a square array of four identical landmarks. The location of the landmark array and corresponding goal varied across trials, so the task could not be solved without using the landmark array. In Experiment 1, a matrix of discrete goal locations was presented and the landmarks surrounded and were adjacent to the correct location during training. After training, an expansion test was given in which the distance between landmarks was increased. Marmosets, children (ages 5–9), and adults all readily learned to use the landmarks to search accurately during training. On the expansion test, adults uniformly searched in the center of the array. Monkeys and children concentrated their searching near the landmarks rather than in the center. The monkeys, but not the children, searched more often on the directionally appropriate side of the landmarks than on other sides of the landmarks. In Experiment 2, children (ages 3–5) were trained with a continuous search space and with the goal farther from the landmarks so that a beaconing strategy rule could not be used. Several of the children failed to acquire the training task. Of those who learned to find the goal, three searched in the middle on expansion tests but most searched nearer to the landmarks. The “middle rule” strategy that is uniformly used by adult humans does not appear to be a preferred strategy for children or non-human primates.
Computing a representation of the local environment
1999, Artificial Intelligence
Yeap (1988) argued that an important basis for computing a cognitive map is the ability to compute and recognise local environments. Although he has demonstrated how such local environments could be used to construct a raw cognitive map, he failed to produce an adequate algorithm for computing them. In this paper, a detailed study of this problem is presented. We argue that although each local environment computed forms a natural basis for constructing a raw cognitive map, it is not computed primarily to do so. Instead, it is computed for one's immediate needs (such as hunting a prey or escaping from danger). This change in perspective argues for a very different cognitive mapping process, namely one that computes local environments as the individual moves through the environment but these representations are not necessarily used to construct a raw map. The individual does not do so until there is evidence that it is going to stay. Consequently this simplifies the algorithm for computing a local environment and a new algorithm is thus proposed. Some results of our implementation are shown.
The effect of landmarks on route-learning in a computer-simulated environment
1994, Journal of Environmental Psychology
In a route-learning task in a computer-simulated environment, subjects repeatedly negotiated a series of rooms each containing two exit doors, and were required to learn which of the doors lead to the next room. In the landmark condition each room contained distinctive objects, while in the non-landmark condition all rooms were identical. The results of experiment 1 revealed that the route-learning performance of both groups was comparable. It was hypothesized that the landmark group relied primarily on paired associate learning in which the landmark objects were associated with the correct door while the non-landmark group learnt a list of correct left/right decisions. In an attempt to suppress the latter strategy, in experiment 2 two groups of subjects were asked to perform the same tasks as the groups in experiment 1, but were required to do a backcounting task while learning the route. This manipulation resulted in superior performance on the part of the landmark group. It is argued that landmarks are only one of many successful strategies that people have at their disposal for learning routes, and that in order to show that landmarks can facilitate route-learning it is necessary to suppress other strategies.

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^☆: Preparation of this paper was supported in part by NIH Research Grant HD2066 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

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The development of landmarks in spatial memory: The role of differential experience☆

Abstract

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Frames of reference used by children for orientation in unfamiliar spaces

Developmental changes in the effects of landmarks on infant spatial behavior

Developmental Psychology

Environmental differentiation and familiarity as determinants of children's memory for spatial location

Developmental Psychology

Developmental issues in cognitive mapping: The selection and utilization of environmental landmarks

Child Development

The role of perceptual context in structuring spatial knowledge

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory

From cognitive to procedural mapping

Developmental changes in cognitive maps of a familiar neighborhood

Child Development

Why buildings are known

Environment and Behavior

Urban cognitive distance

The role of activity in the construction of spatial representations

Distance estimates as a function of type of activity in the environment

Child Development

The representation of landmarks and routes

Child Development