title: Reference frames in virtual spatial navigation are viewpoint dependent.
abstract: Spatial navigation in the mammalian brain relies on a cognitive map of the environment. Such cognitive maps enable us, for example, to take the optimal route from a given location to a known target. The formation of these maps is naturally influenced by our perception of the environment, meaning it is dependent on factors such as our viewpoint and choice of reference frame. Yet, it is unknown how these factors influence the construction of cognitive maps. Here, we evaluated how various combinations of viewpoints and reference frames affect subjects' performance when they navigated in a bounded virtual environment without landmarks. We measured both their path length and time efficiency and found that (1) ground perspective was associated with egocentric frame of reference, (2) aerial perspective was associated with allocentric frame of reference, (3) there was no appreciable performance difference between first and third person egocentric viewing positions and (4) while none of these effects were dependent on gender, males tended to perform better in general. Our study provides evidence that there are inherent associations between visual perspectives and cognitive reference frames. This result has implications about the mechanisms of path integration in the human brain and may also inspire designs of virtual reality applications. Lastly, we demonstrated the effective use of a tablet PC and spatial navigation tasks for studying spatial and cognitive aspects of human memory.
authors.affiliation: Doctoral School of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Hungary ; Department of Cognitive Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Hungary ; Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Agoston
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Török
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX, USA.
authors.forename: T Peter
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Orsolya
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kolozsvári
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX, USA ; Division of Neurosurgery, Seton Brain and Spine Institute Austin, TX, USA ; Department of Psychiatry, UT Southwestern Medical Center Dallas, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Robert J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Buchanan
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Hungary ; Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX, USA ; NeuroTexas Institute, St. David's Healthcare Austin, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Zoltan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Nadasdy
keywords: allocentric; egocentric; navigation; perspective taking; point of view; survey knowledge; tablet pc; virtual reality