Abstract
The ability to navigate flexibly (e.g., reorienting oneself based on distal landmarks to reach a learned target from a new position) may rely on visual scanning during both initial experiences with the environment and subsequent test trials. Reliance on visual scanning during navigation harkens back to the concept of vicarious trial and error, a description of the side-to-side head movements made by rats as they explore previously traversed sections of a maze in an attempt to find a reward. In the current study, we examined if visual scanning predicted the extent to which participants would navigate to a learned location in a virtual environment defined by its position relative to distal landmarks. Our results demonstrated a significant positive relationship between the amount of visual scanning and participant accuracy in identifying the trained target location from a new starting position as long as the landmarks within the environment remain consistent with the period of original learning. Our findings indicate that active visual scanning of the environment is a deliberative attentional strategy that supports the formation of spatial representations for flexible navigation.
Highlights
Navigation through an environment to a goal location is a multifaceted task involving accessing spatial memory to identify the location of the goal, planning a route based on known properties of the environment, updating an internal representation of one’s location on the route and in the overall environment, and flexibly adjusting the route given unanticipated barriers
Behavior on the South probe trials was measured in terms of the distance between the location marked by participants and the location that would be reached using the six move route covertly shaped via the roadblocks during training trials (“distance to route end”); note, the trained route would lead the participant to the opposite corner of the environment from the target location on South probe trials
The exploratory hypothesis of vicarious trial and error behavior suggests that visual scanning is used most in unfamiliar environments, as an agent is learning the parameters that define that environment, and slowly drops off over time (Tolman, 1938)
Summary
Navigation through an environment to a goal location is a multifaceted task involving accessing spatial memory to identify the location of the goal, planning a route based on known properties of the environment, updating an internal representation of one’s location on the route and in the overall environment, and flexibly adjusting the route given unanticipated barriers. Better navigators tend to select landmarks that will be continuously useful (e.g., a playground) rather than ones that could be susceptible to changes over time (e.g., a trash bin; Kato and Takeuchi, 2003), indicating that any escalation in visual attention is combined with increases in conscious selection of the target items. Together, these findings demonstrate that successful navigation, the creation and use of an environmental representation that can handle changes in starting location, relies heavily on the integration and understanding of relationships among the visual aspects of the environment. In order to reach a destination accurately, better navigators exploit the relationships between visual landmarks to identify their own location and that of their target
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