Gender-Based Navigation Stereotype Improves Men’s Search for a Hidden Goal

While a general stereotype exists that men are better at navigating than women, experimental evidence indicates that men and women differ in their use of spatial strategies, and this preference determines gender-differences. When both environmental geometry and landmark cues are available, men appear to learn to navigate using both types of cues, while women show a preference for using landmarks. Using a computer-generated task, 80 undergraduate students from North-East England learned to navigate to a hidden goal. Activating the general navigation stereotype improved the performance of men, compared to the control condition, both when only geometric cues and only landmark cues were present (stereotype lift), suggesting that activating a general stereotype can affect tasks both with (geometry) and without (landmark) established gender-differences in preference. In addition, in the test trial (hidden goal removed) women who learned to navigate using only landmarks spent longer in the correct location of the hidden goal than those who learned to navigate using only geometry. In contrast, the opposite result was found for men, suggesting that when only one cue-type is available, gender-differences still occur, with women better able to navigate using landmarks than geometry, while men seemed to learn more about the location of the goal with reference to geometric than landmark cues.     

Learned predictiveness training modulates biases towards using boundary or landmark cues during navigation

A number of navigational theories state that learning about landmark information should not interfere with learning about shape information provided by the boundary walls of an environment. A common test of such theories has been to assess whether landmark information will overshadow, or restrict, learning about shape information. Whilst a number of studies have shown that landmarks are not able to overshadow learning about shape information, some have shown that landmarks can, in fact, overshadow learning about shape information. Given the continued importance of theories that grant the shape information that is provided by the boundary of an environment a special status during learning, the experiments presented here were designed to assess whether the relative salience of shape and landmark information could account for the discrepant results of overshadowing studies. In Experiment 1, participants were first trained that either the landmarks within an arena (landmark-relevant), or the shape information provided by the boundary walls of an arena (shape-relevant), were relevant to finding a hidden goal. In a subsequent stage, when novel landmark and shape information were made relevant to finding the hidden goal, landmarks dominated behaviour for those given landmark-relevant training, whereas shape information dominated behaviour for those given shape-relevant training. Experiment 2, which was conducted without prior relevance training, revealed that the landmark cues, unconditionally, dominated behaviour in our task. The results of the present experiments, and the conflicting results from previous overshadowing experiments, are explained in terms of associative models that incorporate an attention variant.     

Landmark Stability: Further Studies Pointing to a Role in Spatial Learning

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the possible role of landmark stability in spatial learning. Rats were trained to search in a large arena for food hidden at a consistent distance and direction from either a single radially symmetric landmark or an array of two landmarks. We varied the relative degree to which the landmark array and/or the cues of the training context predicted the location of food, without varying the conditional probability of food being available given either cue. Experiment 1 used vestibular disorientation to ensure control of search location by experimenter-controlled cues. The results showed that making either a single landmark or a cluster of two adjacent landmarks the sole spatial predictor of reward location reduced the accuracy of search compared to a condition where both the landmark array and context cues were reliable spatial predictors. Varying global landmark stability had no effect when training was conducted using an array of two landmarks located some distance from each other. Context cues, when tested alone, triggered very little searching in appropriate locations, and the absolute magnitude of control over search was insufficient to account for the superiority of stable landmarks. The better learning with a stable landmark, and the dependence of this effect on the geometrical arrangement of landmarks, points to the conditions of spatial learning involving additional principles to those of simple associative conditioning. Experiment 2 examined landmark stability using a single landmark and fixed directional cues in the absence of vestibular disorientation. This also revealed a relative advantage of landmark stability, but animals with a landmark that moved from trial to trial did show some evidence of learning. Context cues when tested alone had minimal influence. Parametric manipulation of landmark stability offers a novel way of influencing spatial learning and thus understanding better the process through which egocentric representations of perceived space are transformed into allocentric representations of the real world. The purpose of this paper is to describe two experiments concerned with identifying the psychological processes of allocentric spatial learning. The results point to the idea that landmark stability is an important factor in spatial learning. Specifically, they reveal that whether or not a landmark will be used for the purpose of representing the location of another object (including hidden objects) is influenced by whether it is perceived as geometrically stable with respect to at least one other landmark and/or certain geometric features of the environment. This phenomenon is relevant to the application of associative learning principles to the spatial domain.     

Do humans integrate routes into a cognitive map? Map- versus landmark-based navigation of novel shortcuts

Do humans integrate experience on specific routes into metric survey knowledge of the environment, or do they depend on a simpler strategy of landmark navigation? The authors tested this question using a novel shortcut paradigm during walking in a virtual environment. The authors find that participants could not take successful shortcuts in a desert world but could do so with dispersed landmarks in a forest. On catch trials, participants were drawn toward the displaced landmarks whether the landmarks were clustered near the target location or along the shortcut route. However, when landmarks appeared unreliable, participants fell back on coarse survey knowledge. Like honeybees (F. C. Dyer, 1991), humans do not appear to derive accurate cognitive maps from path integration to guide navigation but, instead, depend on landmarks when they are available.     

Learning your way around town: how virtual taxicab drivers learn to use both layout and landmark information

By having subjects drive a virtual taxicab through a computer-rendered town, we examined how landmark and layout information interact during spatial navigation. Subject-drivers searched for passengers, and then attempted to take the most efficient route to the requested destinations (one of several target stores). Experiment 1 demonstrated that subjects rapidly learn to find direct paths from random pickup locations to target stores. Experiment 2 varied the degree to which landmark and layout cues were preserved across two successively learned towns. When spatial layout was preserved, transfer was low if only target stores were altered, and high if both target stores and surrounding buildings were altered, even though in the latter case all local views were changed. This suggests that subjects can rapidly acquire a survey representation based on the spatial layout of the town and independent of local views, but that subjects will rely on local views when present, and are harmed when associations between previously learned landmarks are disrupted. We propose that spatial navigation reflects a hierarchical system in which either layout or landmark information is sufficient for orienting and wayfinding; however, when these types of cues conflict, landmarks are preferentially used.     

Three-dimensional spatial cognition: information in the vertical dimension overrides information from the horizontal

Fish live in three-dimensional environments, through which they swim with three translational and three rotational degrees of freedom. Navigating through such environments is recognised as a difficult problem, yet fish, and other animals that swim and fly, achieve this regularly. Despite this, the vast majority of research has considered how animals navigate horizontally from place to place and has ignored the vertical component. Here, we test the importance of the vertical axis of space for fish solving a three-dimensional spatial cognition task. We trained banded tetras (Astyanax fasciatus) to learn the route towards a goal in a rotating Y-maze in which the arms led either up and left or down and right in an environment that allowed access to visual landmarks providing horizontal and vertical information. Our results revealed that the landmarks increased navigational efficiency during training. However, these landmarks were ignored when the horizontal and vertical components were placed in conflict with each other by rotating the maze 90° during testing. From this surprising result, we conclude that the cues that are present in the vertical axis (presumably hydrostatic pressure) override landmark cues that have been shown to be salient in experiments that only consider the horizontal component of space.     

Tests for cognitive mapping in Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana)

In these experiments, the authors examined the nature of the spatial information that Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) use during navigation and whether this information is represented in the form of a cognitive map. In Experiment 1, nutcrackers were able to use distal cues to locate a small hidden goal. In Experiments 2 and 3, nutcrackers were given the opportunity to develop a map of a room by viewing local subsets of the landmarks in the room at a goal during training. During transfer tests, nutcrackers were presented with a landmark panorama that was not previously seen at the goal. Of 3 nutcrackers that had learned the relationship between distal cues and the goal, 3 were able to locate the goal during transfer, indicating they may have developed a cognitive map. Experiments 4 and 5 suggest that the simpler mechanism of vector integration may have been used by some nutcrackers during the transfer tests.     

Strategies in landmark use by children, adults, and marmoset monkeys

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.     

Wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge of adults and children in a virtual environment: The role of landmarks

This study investigated the effect of different organizations of landmark-location pairings as fine-space information on wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge on a total of 90 participants: 30 second graders, 30 sixth graders, and 30 adults. All participants had to find their way to a goal in a virtual environment with either randomized or categorical landmarks, or without any landmarks. Thereafter, they had to find the shortest way from the start position to the goal in two consecutive trials (wayfinding performance), and they had to solve a number of spatial knowledge tasks. The results showed that independent of their categorical function, the existence of landmarks influenced the way-finding performance of adults and children in the same way. Whereas the presence of landmarks had no effect on spatial survey knowledge, landmark knowledge itself was influenced by the categorical function of the landmarks presented. Moreover, second graders showed limited achievement compared to adults independent of the existence of landmarks. The main results implicate firstly that children at school age indeed are able to use landmark-location pairings as fine-space information like adults during learning an unknown environmental space, and secondly that a dissociation between wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge might exist.     

Global and local spatial landmarks: their role during foraging by Columbian ground squirrels (Spermophilus columbianus)

Locating food and refuge is essential for an animal's survival. However, little is known how mammals navigate under natural conditions and cope with given environmental constraints. In a series of six experiments, I investigated landmark-based navigation in free-ranging Columbian ground squirrels (Spermophilus columbianus). Squirrels were trained individually to find a baited platform within an array of nine identical platforms and artificial landmarks set up on their territories. After animals learned the location of the food platform in the array, the position of the latter with respect to local artificial, local natural, and global landmarks was manipulated, and the animal's ability to find the food platform was tested. When only positions of local artificial landmarks were changed, squirrels located food with high accuracy. When the location of the array relative to global landmarks was altered, food-finding accuracy decreased but remained significant. In the absence of known global landmarks, the presence of a familiar route and natural local landmarks resulted in significant but not highly accurate performance. Squirrels likely relied on multiple types of cues when orienting towards a food platform. Local landmarks were used only as a secondary mechanism of navigation, and were not attended to when a familiar route and known global landmarks were present. This study provided insights into landmark use by a wild mammal in a natural situation, and it demonstrated that an array of platforms can be employed to investigate landmark-based navigation under such conditions.     

Sex differences in landmark learning by children aged 5 to 12 years

Previous research has shown that men and boys learn routes faster and with fewer errors than do women and girls. Research with adults suggests that men use Euclidean cues when learning a route, whereas women use landmark-based strategies. The strategies used by children have received little study. In Exp. 1, 50 boys and girls, ages 5 to 12 years, were shown a map that contained only landmarks (no streets or roads) and were asked to learn a route consisting of 23 of the landmarks. The children used a pointer to trace the route on the map to a criterion of two successive trials without errors. The performance of boys and girls did not differ significantly on this route-learning task on three measures (number of trials to reach criterion, total time to reach criterion, and total number of errors). In Exp. 2, 52 boys and girls, ages 5 to 12 years, were shown the same map as in Exp. 1 and were asked to learn a route consisting of 12 landmarks. The children traced the route by picking pictures of landmarks in the correct order from a stack of cards with pictures of landmarks on them. Girls made significantly fewer errors than boys on this route-learning task in Exp. 2, and a significantly larger number of girls than boys completed the task. None of the boys in the 5- to 6-yr.-old age group learned the route. When Euclidean cues were minimized in Exp. 2, boys made more errors and took as much time as girls to reach the criterion of two successive correct trials.     

Considering spatial ability in virtual route learning in early aging

The aim of this study is to broaden our understanding of the construction and early decline of spatial mental representations in route learning, considering the extent to which spatial ability and age-related differences in environment learning interact. The experiment examines spatial mental representation derived from taking a realistic route acquired using virtual environment and compares individuals different in age but with similar spatial ability. A sample of 34 young (20–30 years) and 30 middle-aged (50–60 years) females with good mental rotation ability were chosen. Participants learned a complex route through its presentation in a virtual environment and then performed a series of tasks (landmark recognition, location of landmarks and verification of spatial relations). Results show that the two participant age groups had similar performance in landmark recognition task and in verification of sentences describing direct spatial relations; instead, the middle-aged group showed a poorer performance than younger in their ability to locate landmarks and to judge the truth of indirect spatial sentences. These results first suggest that spatial abilities have to be seriously considered to avoid any confusion with age, as age-related differences are attenuated when individuals are different in age but similar in spatial ability. Second they confirm a specific difficulty of older participants to handle spatial information in a global configuration.     

Active and passive contributions to spatial learning

It seems intuitively obvious that active exploration of a new environment will lead to better spatial learning than will passive exposure. However, the literature on this issue is decidedly mixed—in part, because the concept itself is not well defined. We identify five potential components of active spatial learning and review the evidence regarding their role in the acquisition of landmark, route, and survey knowledge. We find that (1) idiothetic information in walking contributes to metric survey knowledge, (2) there is little evidence as yet that decision making during exploration contributes to route or survey knowledge, (3) attention to place–action associations and relevant spatial relations contributes to route and survey knowledge, although landmarks and boundaries appear to be learned without effort, (4) route and survey information are differentially encoded in subunits of working memory, and (5) there is preliminary evidence that mental manipulation of such properties facilitates spatial learning. Idiothetic information appears to be necessary to reveal the influence of attention and, possibly, decision making in survey learning, which may explain the mixed results in desktop virtual reality. Thus, there is indeed an active advantage in spatial learning, which manifests itself in the task-dependent acquisition of route and survey knowledge.     

Blocking in the spatial domain with arrays of discrete landmarks.

A characteristic feature of associative conditioning is that learning a predictive relationship between two events can block later learning about an added event. It is not yet well established whether blocking occurs in the spatial domain or the circumstances in which it does. We now report, using rats trained to search for hidden food near landmarks in an open field arena, that blocking can occur in spatial learning. The animals noticed the added landmark at the start of the blocking phase and explored it, but either failed to incorporate it into their spatial map or developed a representation in which only some landmarks actually control behavior. Additionally, performance at asymptote was controlled by the shape of the landmark array rather than the individual landmarks comprising it, indicating that blocking in the spatial domain may represent a failure to alter the encoded geometry of a learned array.     

How do we get there? Effects of cognitive aging on route memory

Research into the effects of cognitive aging on route navigation usually focuses on differences in learning performance. In contrast, we investigated age-related differences in route knowledge after successful route learning. One young and two groups of older adults categorized using different cut-off scores on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), were trained until they could correctly recall short routes. During the test phase, they were asked to recall the sequence in which landmarks were encountered (Landmark Sequence Task), the sequence of turns (Direction Sequence Task), the direction of turn at each landmark (Landmark Direction Task), and to identify the learned routes from a map perspective (Perspective Taking Task). Comparing the young participant group with the older group that scored high on the MoCA, we found effects of typical aging in learning performance and in the Direction Sequence Task. Comparing the two older groups, we found effects of early signs of atypical aging in the Landmark Direction and the Perspective Taking Tasks. We found no differences between groups in the Landmark Sequence Task. Given that participants were able to recall routes after training, these results suggest that typical and early signs of atypical aging result in differential memory deficits for aspects of route knowledge.     

Age and exposure differences in acquisition of route information

Age and exposure differences were studied in the acquisition of sequentially ordered spatial information and in memory for critical route events. Ss in 4 age groups (older adults, middle-aged adults, college students, and adolescents) viewed slides depicting 2 overlapping neighborhood routes either 1 or 3 times. Older adults were less likely to recall landmarks sequentially and were more likely to recall nonspatial associations to the routes and to regard salient landmarks (rather than turns) as critical route-maintaining events. Exposure was related to number of landmarks recalled, route scene assignment, and reason for selecting critical scenes and was marginally related to critical scene selection. The results suggest that landmark saliency may relate to route learning for older adults, influencing both encoding organization and evaluation of environmental events. The role of decline in cognitive capacity, and the tendency to encode general vs. specific aspects of complex episodic experiences, are discussed.