ORIENTATION-FREE REPRESENTATIONS FROM NAVIGATION THROUGH A COMPUTER-SIMULATED ENVIRONMENT

Navigating through an environment and viewing a map of that environmen t can result in different types of cognitive representation. Maps are typically encoded in the same orientation that they are viewed, while navigation results in an orientation-free representation. The present study concerns the orientation specificity of spatial knowledge follow ing navigation in a computer-simulated space. Subjects either explored a simulated 3-D environment by navigating through it, or were present ed with a map-like single orientation plan view of the same environmen t. When asked to indicate the direction of test objects that were not directly visible from within the simulation, response latencies sugges ted that the navigation group had an orientation-free representation w hile the map group had an orientation-specific representation. We conc lude that navigation in computer-simulated space and real space lead t o similar kinds of spatial knowledge.