title: How does horizontal and vertical navigation influence spatial memory of multifloored environments?
abstract: Although a number of studies have been devoted to 2-D navigation, relatively little is known about how the brain encodes and recalls navigation in complex multifloored environments. Previous studies have proposed that humans preferentially memorize buildings by a set of horizontal 2-D representations. Yet this might stem from the fact that environments were also explored by floors. Here, we have investigated the effect of spatial learning on memory of a virtual multifloored building. Two groups of 28 participants watched a computer movie that showed either a route along floors one at a time or travel between floors by simulated lifts, consisting in both cases of a 2-D trajectory in the vertical plane. To test recognition, the participants viewed a camera movement that either replicated a segment of the learning route (familiar segment) or did not (novel segment-i.e., shortcuts). Overall, floor recognition was not reliably superior to column recognition, but learning along a floor route produced a better spatial memory performance than did learning along a column route. Moreover, the participants processed familiar segments more accurately than novel ones, not only after floor learning, but crucially, also after column learning, suggesting a key role of the observation mode on the exploitation of spatial memory.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physiologie de la Perception et de l'Action, CNRS/Collège de France, Paris, France. guillaume.thibault@edf.fr
authors.forename: Guillaume
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Thibault
authors.forename: Achille
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pasqualotto
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vidal
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Droulez
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Berthoz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001108:Architecture; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D055815:Young Adult