Not all those who wander are lost: Spatial exploration patterns and their relationship to gender and spatial memory

Cognition
Kyle T GagnonJeanine K Stefanucci

Abstract

When humans and animals navigate through environments, they form spatial memories important for supporting subsequent recall of locations relative to their own position and orientation, as well as to other object locations in the environment. The goal of the current study was to examine whether individual differences in initial exploration of a large-scale novel environment relate to subsequent spatial memories. A majority of studies examining spatial memory formed in large-scale spaces have constrained encoding of the environment by leading participants on pre-determined paths, thereby limiting their free exploration. We allowed participants to freely explore a large-scale, virtual environment to locate a set of objects within. We then tested their ability to navigate back to those objects as well as their ability to point to them from one another. Based on previous work suggesting gender differences in navigation strategies and spatial anxiety, we predicted that males and females would show different patterns of initial exploration and that these exploration patterns would account for gender differences in measures of spatial memory. We found that females revisited previous locations more often and showed lower rates of sprea...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jul 26, 2019·PloS One·Valter PrpicIan M Thornton
Jul 5, 2019·Psychonomic Bulletin & Review·Alina NazarethNora Newcombe
Mar 19, 2020·Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications·Vanessa VieitesBethany C Reeb-Sutherland
Aug 23, 2019·Psychonomic Bulletin & Review·Ascher K MunionMichael Hendricks
Oct 31, 2020·Current Biology : CB·Cathy S ChenNicola M Grissom
Nov 13, 2020·Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment·Kai-Ming JhangHsin-Hung Wu
Nov 6, 2020·Brain Sciences·Laura PiccardiRaffaella Nori
Apr 14, 2021·Journal of Neuroscience Research·Christine M GallGary Lynch
Jul 3, 2021·Brain Sciences·Laura TascónJosé Manuel Cimadevilla
Aug 27, 2021·Topics in Cognitive Science·Jeffrey L Krichmar, Chuanxiuyue He
Jan 2, 2022·Topics in Cognitive Science·Mary HegartyElizabeth R Chrastil

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