Seeing where you are heading: Integrating environmental and egocentric reference frames in cardinal direction judgments

This research focused on how people coordinate the environmental reference frame of a map with the egocentric reference frame of the forward field of view to make cardinal direction judgments. In 3 studies, reference frame mi salignment was found to slow response time for cardinal direction judgments and also markedly decrease accuracy. The studies also showed that people o ften use a nonrotational, analytic strategy for cardinal direction judgment s that has not been identified for other navigational tasks, and that inter face aids that improve other navigational tasks seem ineffective for cardin al direction judgments. These findings lead to the recommendation that inte rface aids for improving cardinal direction judgments should integrate head ing information from the environmental reference frame into the egocentric frame (forward view).