Not all those who wander are lost: Spatial exploration patterns and their relationship to gender and spatial memory
Not all those who wander are lost: Spatial exploration patterns and their relationship to gender and spatial memory
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.020
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发表时间：
2018-11-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
Stefanucci, Jeanine K.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gagnon, Kyle T.;Thomas, Brandon J.;Stefanucci, Jeanine K.
当人类和动物在环境中导航时，它们形成空间记忆，这对于支持随后回忆与它们自己的位置和方向以及环境中的其他物体位置相关的位置很重要。本研究的目的是检验个体在大规模新环境的初始探索中的差异是否与随后的空间记忆有关。大多数研究在大规模空间中形成的空间记忆的研究都通过引导参与者沿着预先确定的路径进行编码来限制环境，从而限制了他们的自由探索。我们允许参与者自由地探索一个大规模的虚拟环境，以定位其中的一组对象。然后，我们测试了它们导航回这些对象的能力，以及它们相互指向这些对象的能力。基于以前的工作表明导航策略和空间焦虑的性别差异，我们预测，男性和女性会表现出不同的模式的初步探索，这些探索模式将占空间记忆的措施的性别差异。我们发现，女性更经常地重访以前的地点，并显示出较低的传播率通过一个地区。这些探索措施部分解释了导航效率和记忆位置指向准确性方面的性别差异。研究结果表明，探索在空间记忆中的重要性，并提供了一个新的视角，性别差异的空间认知。
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 spreading through an area. These measures of exploration partially accounted for gender differences in efficiency in navigation and pointing accuracy to remembered locations. The results demonstrate the importance of exploration in spatial memory and provide a new perspective on gender differences in spatial cognition.