Place learning in virtual space III: Investigation of spatial navigation training procedures and their application to fMRI and clinical neuropsychology

This paper describes the utilization of a desktop virtual environment task, the Computer-Generated (C-G) Arena, in the study of human spatial navigati on. First, four experiments examined the efficacy of various training proce dures in the C-G Arena. In Experiment 1, participants efficiently located a hidden target after only observing the virtual environment from a fixed po sition (placement learning). In Experiment 2, participants efficiently loca ted a hidden target after only observing an experimenter search the virtual environment (observational learning). In Experiment 3, participants failed to display a latent leaning effect in the virtual environment. In Experime nt ii, all training procedures effectively taught participants the layout o f the virtual environment, but the observational learning procedure most ef fectively taught participants the location of a hidden target within the en vironment. Finally, two experiments demonstrated the application of C-G Are na procedures to neuroimaging (Experiment 5) and neuropsychological (Experi ment 6) investigations of human spatial navigation.