Memory for routes

Two experiments examined the acquisition of cognitive maps of two intersecting routes through an urban area. In the presentation stage of the experiments, slides of the two routes were shown in order to simulate travel along the routes. The number of presentations of the slides was varied. In the test stage, subjects made directional and distance judgements from memory between places on the routes. The results suggest that from the start of acquisition of the spatial layout of the routes, subjects used network schemata in which both routes were combined, rather than a separate scheme for each route which were later combined. During initial acquisitions of the routes, a direction of travel bias was found such that spatial judgements from memory tended to be more accurate in the direction of travel along the routes than in the opposite direction. The findings imply that, at least during early acquisition, the spatial properties of the routes were encoded in terms of sequential associations.