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Cognitive mapping in humans and its relationship to other orientation skills

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Abstract

Human orientation in novel and familiar environments is a complex skill that can involve numerous different strategies. To date, a comprehensive account of how these strategies interrelate at the behavioural level has not been documented, impeding the development of elaborate systems neuroscience models of spatial orientation. Here, we describe a virtual environment test battery designed to assess five of the core strategies used by humans to orient. Our results indicate that the ability to form a cognitive map is highly related to more basic orientation strategies, supporting previous proposals that encoding a cognitive map requires inputs from multiple domains of spatial processing. These findings provide a topology of numerous primary orientation strategies used by humans during orientation and will allow researchers to elaborate on neural models of spatial cognition that currently do not account for how different orientation strategies integrate over time based on environmental conditions.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council) Discovery Grant (GI) (Grant number: 354594). A. A. was supported by Alberta Health Services and the Ministry of Human Services as part of the Collaborative Research Grant Initiative: Mental Wellness in Seniors and Persons with Disabilities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NeuroLab, Departments of Psychology and Clinical Neurosciences, and Hotchkiss Brain Institute-A062, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada

    Aiden E. G. F. Arnold, Ford Burles, Taisya Krivoruchko, Irene Liu, Colin D. Rey & Giuseppe Iaria

  2. Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, Canada

    Richard M. Levy

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  1. Aiden E. G. F. Arnold
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  2. Ford Burles
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  3. Taisya Krivoruchko
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  4. Irene Liu
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  5. Colin D. Rey
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  6. Richard M. Levy
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Correspondence to Aiden E. G. F. Arnold.

Appendix

Appendix

Additional information on the generation of stimuli for each test is presented below. Each of the orientation tests within the battery is also accessible on our website at www.gettinglost.ca.

Landmark Recognition test

The testing environment consisted of a grid of symmetrical passageways between walls with identical textures. See Fig. 2 for a visual of the environment without landmarks. Twelve different types of objects were created with four similar but different versions of each. Figure 3 presents a visual of one landmark from each of the twelve types. These landmarks were generated randomly in each trial such that only one type of each landmark was ever presented within a single trial. Each landmark was encountered along the pathway (not at intersections), and the first-person motion stopped for 3 s to look at it before continuing along the path. At the end of each video clip, participants were presented with four landmarks within the same category (i.e. benches), and they were asked to identify the one encountered while travelling along the pathway. This test consisted of 12 trials.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Screen capture of the environment used for the Landmark Recognition test, Heading Orientation test and Sequence Matching test. For the Landmark Recognition and Heading Orientation tests, landmarks were positioned in the centre of the passageway after each intersection

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Fig. 3
figure 3

Visual depiction of one of the four versions for each of the twelve landmarks. a Bench. b Door—each version had a different pattern on the door. c Fountain. d Greenhouse. e Kiosk—each version had a different texture with an identical shape. f Ladder. g Lamp. h Tempietto. i Topiary. j Tree. k Tree in pot. l Windowed house—each version had a different window pattern

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Heading Orientation

The testing environment was similar to the one used in the Landmark Recognition test (see Fig. 2). Landmarks from our group of 48 were randomly selected to be in a video. No video presented two or more landmarks of the same type. Thirty-second video clips were generated that showed three left or right turns being made at each of the landmarks. One of the three landmarks from the video clip was randomly selected and presented at the end of the video when participants indicated whether a left or right turn had been made. All participants were shown the same order of video clips during the experiment.

Sequence Matching test

The testing environment was similar to the one used in the Landmark Recognition test (see Fig. 2), except there were no landmarks placed within the environment. Paths involved sequences of three consecutive left or right turns at each intersection. We generated 30-second video clips of randomized left/right turns. We randomly selected six of these clips and matched them with the identical clip. These composed the ‘same’ trials where the path was identical in each video clip. We also randomly selected six clips and paired them with non-matching video clips. These composed the ‘different’ trials.

Path Integration test

Figure 1 provides a visual depiction of the test environment. Paths were constructed using the edges of right angle triangles as trajectories. The final edge of the path was always the hypotenuse of the triangle. In a third of the trials, participants viewed video clips of a person completing the triangle and ending at the same point that they started. On the other two-thirds of trials, participants saw video clips where the person ended either before or after the starting point. These trials were created by subtracting or adding 30 % of the total time taken to traverse the final edge of the triangle. The order of these trials was randomized for each participant.

Cognitive Map Formation test

Figure 4 presents an aerial view of the virtual city grid and each of the four unique landmarks used in this test. Paths for each trial were created by first generating a randomized path through the city. This path was then randomly clipped into 1-min segments of video. This was done 20 times. We then discarded all videos that did not present at least two of the city landmarks. This resulted in nine one-minute video clips that showed two or more city landmarks. We selected one clip that showed a path between all four landmarks and presented that first to ensure that it was possible for participants to encode the correct spatial arrangement of the city on the first trial. All participants were shown the same order of clips during the experiment to control for between-subject variability in the level of exposure to each of the landmarks.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Aerial view of the environment used in the Cognitive Map Formation and Use test with the location of each landmark within the virtual city grid. a Street view of schoolhouse landmark. b Street view of museum landmark. c Street view of office landmark. d Street view of church landmark

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Cognitive Map Use test

Viewpoints for each of the starting points were randomly selected for one of the four sides or four corners for each of the landmarks. Destinations were selected for each starting point by selecting which landmark resulted in a clear left or right turn from the starting point when traversing the route in the shortest path possible. Each landmark was used as a starting point three times for a total of 12 trials. No viewpoint of a landmark was repeated in the same testing session.

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Arnold, A.E.G.F., Burles, F., Krivoruchko, T. et al. Cognitive mapping in humans and its relationship to other orientation skills. Exp Brain Res 224, 359–372 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3316-0

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