Individual Differences in Development and Applicability of Navigational Knowledge

Abstract

Wayfinding is a skill we all possess and employ on a highly frequent basis. Yet, we differ greatly in our ability to build accurate representations of the areas through which we travel. This difference manifests itself in the structure of the cognitive maps we develop as well as in the time it takes us to do so. In this paper, we show that good cognitive mappers not only develop more robust and applicable representations, they also do so faster than navigators who develop less integrated and organized cognitive maps. Little is known about the relationship between the cognitive maps that people develop and the rate at which they do so. Focus is generally placed on the type of representation that people develop of an environment and the stages that the representation goes through with repeated exposure. Our data suggests that people are predisposed to develop immediately either a landmark based, route based, or survey type representation. This differs from the well-established stage theory that people's cognitive map progresses from a landmark, to a route, to a survey type representation. Furthermore, it appears that this initial choice in representation is rather stable, as it does not change much with prolonged exposure. We hypothesize that people who initially develop a landmark or route based cognitive map may over time be able to use this representation to generate a survey type map, or use this knowledge as if they had a survey type representation. True survey mappers, however, have the mental equivalent of a map (bird's eye perspective) through which they can mentally navigate. Some people may be able to develop a mental map with extensive training in the strategies that facilitate development of such a mental map, but the ultimate constraints to achieving this are the working memory capability and information processing speed. We hypothesize that the ability to quickly manipulate relatively large amounts of spatial knowledge in working memory affords development of a highly robust, generally applicable, information rich, integrated representations faster than people who are more constrained by their cognitive spatial abilities. Without these inherent tools to process and organize spatial information one may be able to match performance of true survey mapper but at the cost of needing more support and/or time to match their performance level. In this paper, we begin to explore these issues.