Effect of Navigation Aids and Landmarks on Acquisition of Spatial Knowledge in Virtual Environments

The effect of navigation aids and landmarks on spatial learning was investigated when participants repeatedly navigated four complex three-dimensional virtual mazes. The study was divided into two main phases: learning and a test of learning transfer. The learning phase consisted of participants directly navigating in one of the four virtual mazes with or without navigation aids and landmarks. Learning transfer was examined by testing navigation tasks in the environment without the use of the navigation aids. Findings show that the combined impact of both navigation aids and landmarks on spatial knowledge acquisition in navigation tasks.