Distance cognition in virtual environmental space: further investigations to clarify the route-angularity effect.
Two experiments with 72 participants in total investigated the route-angularity effect. This effect is shown when a greater number of turns along a route increase the estimated length of this route. In this study it was shown that the route-angularity effect is likely to be a memory-based effect depending on task difficulty. The important factor seems to be how heavily memory is loaded during learning. The route-angularity effect even appears in intentional learning, when memory is loaded heavily. Under this learning condition participants know beforehand that they have to estimate distances. All experiments were conducted in a controlled virtual environment, which allows a reliable investigation of distance estimations in environmental space.
Institute of Experimental Psychology, Heinrich-Heine-University, Universitätsstrasse 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. petra.jansen-osmann@uni-duesseldorf.de
Petra
P
Jansen-Osmann
Gunnar
G
Wiedenbauer
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001364:Awareness; D003867:Depth Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004215:Distance Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011939:Mental Recall; D009949:Orientation; D012718:Set, Psychology; D012931:Social Environment; D012984:Software; D013028:Space Perception; D014584:User-Computer Interface