Effects of Disorientation on Human Spatial Cognition: Object Localization in Virtual Environments

Abstract

The present research examines the effects of disorientation on human ability to locate objects in space in a virtual environment (VE). Participants were asked to memorize the location of virtual objects. After memorizing object locations, they were asked to indicate where the objects were located while inside a virtual chamber. This procedure was repeated in eyes-closed and disoriented conditions. Subject pointing responses were used to measure memory for the relative location of objects in virtual space. This method was extended from Wang and Spelke's (2000) research in a real-world setting. The results show systematic individual differences in the effects of disorientation on the ability to locate objects in space. Two groups of subjects, initially disoriented in the eyes-closed condition, use a memory strategy to locate objects, while another group, less easily disoriented in eyes-closed, shows degraded performance in the disorientated condition. The results are discussed with respect to configural and egocentric theories of spatial cognition.

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