From maps to navigation: the role of cues in finding locations in a virtual environment.

In two experiments, participants navigated through a large arena within a virtual environment (VE) to a location encoded in memory from a map. In both experiments, participants recalled locations by navigating through the VE, but in Experiment 2, they additionally recalled the locations on the original map. Two cues were located outside and above the walls of the arena at either north-south locations or east-west locations.

Moderating the route angularity effect in a virtual environment: support for a dual memory representation.

Research has shown that increasing the number of turns that a route takes through the environment increases estimates of distance--the route angularity effect. This study tested implications of different memory-based explanations of the route angularity effect within a virtual setting. Participants maneuvered through virtual pathways of varying length that included zero, two, or seven turns.