To Örebro University

Spatial knowledge updating is the ability to keep track of one’s position and orientation while moving with respect to the locations such as the starting point. In everyday navigation tasks that involve rotational locomotion, spatial updating frequently fails as a result of the alignment effect, referring to human’s inability to coordinate various spatial representations and reference frames, and human’s tendency to ignore proprioceptive, visual and auditory cues, as a result of changes in perspective, scale, or orientation.

In our empirical study conducted in a large-scale built-up environment, the railway station in Bremen, we investigate if and how rotational locomotion affects the navigation performance in a naturalist every-day task of departure and arrival. The experimental group performs an ego-turn of 360◦ as part of the route while they are able to use all the proprioceptive, visual and auditory cues available to initiate a corresponding counter-rotation of the world. The control group performs the same task without rotational locomotion. Participants were categorised according to the level of familiarity with the environment. We use a multi-modal approach (e.g. orientation task, eye-tracking, questionnaires, videos) to investigate user’s spatial behaviour, focusing on the disorientation effect, and the visuo-spatial features they use for reorientation.

Primary results confirm previous studies suggested that spatial updating is not automatic, it is affected by rotational locomotion and it depends on the level of familiarity of users with the environment. Familiar users tend to proceed an instantaneous spatial updating using different visuo-spatial features than unfamiliar users. Individual differences (gender, mental rotation abilities) are excluded in this study but they are considered significant as a next step. We conclude that people are affected differently by the rotational locomotion, they follow various strategies for reorientation, and so the environment should provide a range of visuo-spatial information to address the user groups.