Encoding of Spatial Information

We are interested in how people mentally encode spatial information for wayfinding. In one of our route-following studies, subjects either got a map or a verbal route direction for a given route, had to memorize this, and then to follow the route. It turns out that subjects memorize the route as a sequence of propositional instructions. They performed better for simple routes using the verbal directions; for more complex routes being able to recall a mental image of the map was beneficial. In another study employing a secondary task setting, subjects were distracted with either a verbal, a spatial, or a visual secondary task during the learning phase and then had to find their way in a virtual environment (see the image). This study supports the interpretation of the first study: environmental information for wayfinding seems to be stored in a propositional format employing abstract spatial knowledge rather than a visual image.