Spatial Knowledge Acquisition in the Process of Navigation: A Review

In this article, we address the central topic of the call for papers, childhood educates space, from the perspective of children’s and young people’s spatial knowledge. We argue that both childhood and youth educate as much as are educated by space. To shed light on this dynamic and complex interaction, we focus on the arenas and agencies at play within the production and acquisition of spatial knowledge. The term arena refers to the spatial conditions that delineate an area of activity related to the production and acquisition of spatial knowledge, and agency denotes the crucial means, agents, and tools that are instrumental in and buttress such area of activity. To render operative the analysis, we draw on two driving themes: (i) the gradual development of a comprehensive conception of space and (ii) its accompanying (and traversing) learning processes. Moreover, to substantiate the assertion that education between childhood and youth and space is mutually constitutive, we present a selection of findings from a qualitative meta-analysis conducted to reconstruct the evolution of young people’s spatial knowledge from the 1970s onwards. All in all, we claim that the process of production and acquisition of spatial knowledge forms the basis of, on the one hand, the keenness and depth of the perception that children and young people have of the physical world and, on the other, the ways they subjectively and symbolically characterize it.

Hand-held mobile map applications relying on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) services have become the preferred wayfinding and navigation support over the last decades. Mobile map apps provide pedestrian urban navigators with abundant geographic information. Navigators can assess their current location in real-time, zoom, pan, and query the map during navigation. This has profoundly impacted our daily mobility routines. Navigation occurs concurrently with spatial learning, that is, navigators continuously acquire visual-spatial information from the surrounding environment and from their mobile maps during navigation. Navigators encode this information into memory and ultimately construct a mental representation of the traversed environment. Recalling and decoding spatial knowledge can assist navigators in self-localization, locating and finding relevant features in their surroundings, and getting to new destinations (Downs & Stea, 2011) . Previous studies have extensively examined pedestrian spatial learning in terms of its behavioral stages (Ishikawa & Montello, 2006; Kim & Bock, 2021) and how this process is supported by neural systems in the brain (Epstein et al., 2017; Peer et al., 2021) . However, how map-assisted pedestrian spatial knowledge develops over time is still an open research question. Little is known about how evolving environmental familiarity impacts map-assisted navigators' spatial learning processes. Having these unsolved issues in mind, we proposed this empirical study to address the following two research questions:

This chapter discusses cognitive issues about the use of maps and spatial orientation in the environment and possible implications of research in the literature of spatial cognition for map and navigation learning in STEAM. It first clarifies the tradition of research in spatial cognition, behavior, and thinking and discusses the concept of spatial representation in relation to symbolic and geometric understanding of maps and the acquisition of spatial knowledge in the environment. Then the chapter looks at the difficulties that students have with maps in terms of projection, scaling, and symbolization and discusses the possibility of instructional intervention, taking the degree of iconicity of spatial representations and the alignment of maps with the surrounding environments into account. Concerning spatial orientation, cognitive demands that configurational learning in large-scale environments poses and the distortions typically observed in people’s spatial knowledge and judgments are discussed, in particular the theoretical and practical implications of the existence of large individual differences. Finally, the chapter explains the manners in which people identify and communicate their locations in the environment and considers problems and prospects of spatial awareness in the age of advanced geospatial information and technology.

Abstract. Recent years have witnessed the rapid development of navigation systems. They gradually become the default way of navigating in our daily life. Despite benefiting from their convenience, we may be negatively influenced by them (Parush et al. 2007). Current navigation systems usually draw too much of users' attention to the mobile devices, which leads to users’ lacking interaction with the environment. It is often the case that people easily forget travelled route and get lost without navigation systems (Reilly et al. 2008). Empirical study shows that by dividing attention, navigation systems impair users’ spatial memory, and thus impact their navigation skills (Gardony et al. 2013). Since a higher engagement with the environment can improve users’ spatial knowledge acquisition without decreasing efficiency (Brügger et al. 2017), navigation systems should incorporate important environmental features.As objects of visual, cognitive or structural importance (Sorrows & Hirtle 1999), landmarks have been extensively studied, and considered as an important environmental feature to be incorporated into navigation systems (Nuhn & Timpf 2018, Richter 2017, Duckham et al. 2010, Raubal & Winter 2002). They serve as references to provide users with more natural and pleasant navigating experience (Richter & Winter 2014). However, most of landmark-related studies are in outdoor environment. Although researchers have attempted to classify and assess indoor landmarks (Ohm 2014, Viaene 2014), it is still very difficult to determine suitable ones. As a subset of semantic indoor landmarks, existing navigational aids (e.g. signs and floor plans) are designed to assist navigation. Among them, signs are most preferred by users (Wang et al. 2017). Being the signs that give necessary information to route users to possible destinations, directional signs contribute most to wayfinding (Gibson 2009). With route information explicitly presented by them, they are relevant environmental features to be incorporated into indoor navigation systems.In this study, we therefore propose to incorporate directional signs into indoor navigation systems, in order to guide users’ attention back to the environment, to facilitate their spatial learning and improve their spatial knowledge acquisition.We incorporated directional signs into a proof-of-concept indoor navigation system. First, we integrated directional signs and their semantics into a graph-based model. A directional sign was modelled as a node. Each destination on the sign was linked with the sign by an edge. In order to differentiate it from the normal edge, it was marked as semantic edge. Thus, the semantics of the sign was modelled directly into the graph, instead of being stored as attributes in a previous version of our study (Wang & Gartner 2018). Then, a top-K shortest path algorithm was employed to find candidate routes (Yen 1971). In the end, the route with the largest coverage of semantic edges was suggested to the user. The users would then be explicitly guided to follow the directional signs in the environment.In the next step, we will evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed navigation system by an empirical study with human subjects. Within the experiment, we will also investigate on whether this kind of guidance can succeed in drawing users’ attention back to the environment and support their spatial knowledge acquisition.

Autonomous vehicles, which free drivers from driving, are gaining increasing interest for future travel needs. But the degradation of driver’s spatial knowledge will likely worsen when drivers no longer need to actively steer nor pay attention to the environment. This study extends the theory of visualising distant landmarks on mobile phone to windshield using Augmented Reality (AR), to support spatial learning. This study investigates the impact of AR distant landmarks (with vs. without AR landmarks) and road conditions (highway vs. local road) on acquiring spatial knowledge through an experiment using simulated videos of autonomous driving. Participants are randomly assigned to one of two scenarios to complete tasks which assessed their acquired spatial knowledge one the route-, directional, and configural levels. Results show that distant landmarks enhance the efficiency of acquiring route- and directional knowledge, although the effectiveness of acquiring route knowledge with AR landmarks is not significant on local road. Configurational knowledge is more likely impacted by the road type instead of the AR landmarks. The results indciate the necessity of carrying out follow-up studies on symbolising additional information in AR landmarks for supporting spatial learning and evaluate their impacts on the spatial knowledge at the configurational level.

Evaluating the effects of collaboration and competition in navigation tasks and spatial knowledge acquisition within virtual reality environments

Objective. This study explored the classification of electroencephalography (EEG) signals to assess changes in neural activity as individuals performed a training task in a virtual environment simulator. Commonly, task behavior and perception are used to assess a trainee’s ability to perform a task, however, changes in cognition are not usually measured and could be important to provide a true indication of an individual’s level of knowledge or skill. Approach. In this study, 15 participants acquired spatial knowledge via 60 navigation trials (divided into ten blocks) in a novel virtual environment. Time performance, perceived certainty, and EEG signal data were collected. Main results. A significant increase in alpha power and classification accuracy of EEG data from block 1 against blocks 2–10 was observed and stabilized after block 7, while time performance and perceived certainty measures improved and stabilized after block 5 and 6, respectively. Significance. Results suggest that changes in neural activity, which may reflect an increase in cognitive efficiency, could provide additional insight beyond time performance and perceived certainty.

In this paper the infl uence of the display size on the acquisition of spatial knowledge is investigated. The acquisition of spatial knowledge based on presentation forms with different display sizes has been analysed in an empirical test for pedestrian navigation. This contribution describes and interprets the test and results and gives an outlook on the overall importance for future application developments in the context of LBS, as mobile systems typically use small displays and the overall concern exists, that these displays can not communicate any useful spatial information in typical map form to pedestrians.

Navigation assistance systems have become integral to our daily routines, helping us to find our way through unfamiliar environments. However, their use may come at a price, as empirical evidence suggests a potentially harmful impact of these systems on our spatial abilities, including the acquisition of spatial knowledge. This could be remedied by giving users more freedom and involving them in the decision-making process. Therefore, we present a navigation system that combines augmented reality and Beeline Navigation (BeeAR). Here, the location of the destination is overlaid with a digital landmark and permanently displayed to the user via a visual, translucent AR display (without a map). Since the digital content is integrated into the real world, no mapping between the device and reality is required, potentially lowering the workload. Making one's own decisions along the route is expected to increase engagement with the environment, leading to increased acquisition of spatial knowledge. We compare BeeAR with findings from a previous study comparing Free Choice Navigation (FCN) and Turn-by-Turn (TBT) navigation conducted along the same routes on the outskirts of Vienna, Austria. Although BeeAR and FCN do not provide users with a map, BeeAR users could better retrace the walked route and remembered more points of interest along the route than FCN users. Participants of all three navigation conditions achieved a high configuration similarity between drawn points of interest and their true locations, albeit only one navigation condition included a map.

Concepts of spatial navigation rest on the idea of landmarks, which are immobile features or objects in the environment. However, behaviorally relevant objects or fellow humans are often mobile. This raises the question of how the presence of human agents influences spatial exploration and knowledge acquisition. Here, we investigate exploration and performance in subsequent spatial tasks within a virtual environment containing numerous human avatars. In the exploration phase, agents had a locally limited effect on navigation. They prompted participants to revisit locations with agents during their initial exploration without significantly altering overall exploration patterns or the extent of the area covered. However, agents and buildings competed for visual attention. When spatial recall was tested, pointing accuracy toward buildings improved when participants directed their attention to the buildings and nearby agents. In contrast, pointing accuracy for agents showed weaker performance and did not benefit from visual attention directed toward the adjacent building. Contextual agents and incongruent agent-environment pairings further enhanced pointing accuracy, revealing that violations of expectations by agents can significantly shape navigational knowledge acquisition. Overall, agents influenced spatial exploration by directing attention locally, with the interaction between agent salience and environmental features playing a key role in shaping navigational knowledge acquisition.

Learning the spatial layout of an environment is essential in application domains including military and emergency personnel training. Traditionally, whilst learning space from a Virtual Environment (VE), identical training time was used for all users - a one size fits all approach to exposure / training time. This chapter, however, identifies both environmental and individual user differences that influence the training time required to ensure effective virtual environment spatial knowledge acquisition (SKA). We introduce the problem of contradicting literature in the area of SKA, and discuss how the amount of exposure time given to a person during VE training is responsible for the feasibility of SKA. We then show how certain individual user differences, as well as environmental factors, impact on the required exposure time that a particular person needs within a specific VE. Individual factors discussed include: the importance of knowledge and experience; the importance of gender; the importance of aptitude and spatial orientation skills; and the importance of cognitive styles. Environmental factors discussed include: Size, Spatial layout complexity and landmark distribution. Since people are different, a one-size fits all approach to training time does not seem logical. The impact of this research domain is important to VE training in general, however within service and military domains ensuring appropriate spatial training is critical in order to ensure that disorientation does not occur in a life / death scenario.

The structure and shape of an urban environment influence our ability to find our way about in the city^1-2^. Indeed, urban designers who face the challenge of planning environments that facilitate wayfinding^3^, have a consequent need to understand the relations between the urban environment and spatial cognition^4^. Previous studies have suggested that certain qualities of city elements, such as a distinct contrast with the background (e.g. The Eiffel Tower in Paris), or a clear morphology (e.g. the grid layout of Manhattan's streets) affect spatial behaviour and cognition^1,5-7^. However, only a few empirical studies have examined the relations between the urban environment and spatial cognition. Here we suggest that testing rats in experimental environments that simulate certain facets of urban environment can provide an insight into human spatial behaviour in urban environments with a similar layout. Specifically, we simulated two city layouts: (1) a grid street layout such as that of Manhattan; and (2) an irregular street layout such as that of Jerusalem. We found that the rats that were tested in the grid layout covered more ground and visited more locations, compared with the restricted movement demonstrated by the rats tested in the irregular layout. This finding in rats is in accordance with previous findings that urban grids conduce to high movement flow throughout the city, compared to low movement flow in irregular urban layouts^8-9^. Previous studies revealed that the spatial behaviour of rats and humans is controlled by the same underlying mechanisms^10-11^. In the same vein, we show that rats demonstrate spatial movement patterns that recall those of humans in similar urban environments. Rat behaviour may thus offer an in-vivo means for testing and analyzing the spatial cognitive principles of specific urban designs and for inferring how humans may perceive a particular urban environment and orient in it.

A rich cognitive map of a space can enhance the individual's experience within the space. However, cognitive maps develop gradually through repeated experience; and because of this, on-demand mobile search services (e.g., Google Maps, Yelp) are often used to compensate for missing knowledge. In this work, we developed and evaluated a context-aware place discovery application called Opportunities Exist to assist in the acquisition of spatial knowledge and meaning. The application differs from traditional search in that places are discovered using an activity (e.g., drink coffee, sit in the sun) and the discovery process runs continuously, maintaining a history of places the user can perform her activities as she goes about her day. We conducted a 4-week deployment in two North American cities. The results show that users were able to discover new places to perform their activities in familiar spaces and learned to associate new activities with familiar places. In addition, participants leveraged the application to perform activities opportunistically, and used continuous place discovery as an opportunistic reminder of routines they wanted to break out of or resume.

Environmental Psychology: Overview

In an empirical evaluation, we examined participants' visual attention allocation to a dynamic wayfinding map in a complex simulation meant to educate medical practitioners in a hand hygiene protocol. Complex virtual environments (VEs) are novel types of virtual worlds that embody large spaces, interactive virtual humans, static and dynamic virtual entities, and intricate tasks that simulate real-world settings. Previous investigations of wayfinding aids have focused on the evaluation of spatial orientation, knowledge acquisition, and usage. We employed an eye tracker and created visualization tools to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze participants' visual attention to the wayfinding aid in our simulation. Results suggest that the proportion of time of gaze, total gaze count, and gaze transitions between various elements of the VE are altered with the use of the wayfinding aid. Participants also tend to employ innovative visual strategies in order to efficiently plan routes and accomplish tasks in the VE.