Factors to Affect our Performance for Finding a Way and Acquiring a Cognitive Map in Virtual-reality Environment

摘要

When we move around an unfamiliar environment, we use egocentric and exocentric information. In this research, we investigated how exocentric information interacts with egocentric information for wayfinding and acquisition of cognitive map in virtual environment. The results showed that (a) concurrent exocentric information improved performance in general, (b) performance of wayfinding did not depend on whether prior presentation of the maze was egocentric or exocentric, (c) with addition of landmark information on the maze there was significant improvement of performance of wayfinding, and (d) with addition of heading information there was significant improvement of acquisition of cognitive map. These results suggest that transformation from egocentric frame of reference to exocentric one requires information about observer's orientation besides temporal change of egocentric view.