Does viewing a top-down map facilitate spatial learning from navigation in a virtual environment?
Jie Ding, Ho Ming Chan, Jeffrey Allen Saunders · 2026
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Description
Jie Ding and colleagues test whether top-down maps help people learn layouts from virtual navigation in a 2026 study. Maps present survey knowledge directly, yet navigation builds egocentric knowledge, and whether the two integrate was unclear. Three experiments had participants navigate virtual city and village environments to find target sequences, then complete pointing, direction-judgment and map-reconstruction tasks, with and without map viewing.
Map previews before exploration in city and village settings showed no overall accuracy gain, and even a detailed map shown repeatedly during exploration in a landmark-rich village gave no benefit. The authors speculate that translating between egocentric and allocentric frames blocks integration. Designers of navigation training gain a caution: map study alone may not improve learning from first-person exploration.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Jie Ding, Ho Ming Chan, Jeffrey Allen Saunders |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 95 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |