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Is Order Memory of Routes Temporal or Spatial? An Individual Differences Study

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Spatial Cognition X (Spatial Cognition 2016, KogWis 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 10523))

Abstract

Memory for order has been shown to be a separate component of navigation ability. The current study is aimed at characterizing order memory in navigation and to assess the impact of individual differences. In total, 589 participants performed an experiment in which they studied a video of a route through a realistic virtual environment, after which they were asked about the relative and absolute order of scenes in the route. Results suggest that order memory performance in navigation resembles the spatial layout of a route, rather than its temporal layout. Order memory appears to be relatively robust, as it is affected only by age and spatial experience, but not by gender or spatial anxiety. Participants showed an increase in performance into mid adulthood, directly followed by a decrease in performance. Spatial experience only affected performance for children; the more they navigated by themselves in daily life, the better their order memory.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Science Live initiative at Nemo Science, Amsterdam for the opportunity to use their facilities, Rimalda van Beurden and Christel Peeters for their assistance in testing the participants, and Edwin Dalmeijer for his help in programming the experiment. This work was supported by NWO (Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research) under Veni grant (451.12.004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health, Medical, and Neuropsychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Ineke J. M. van der Ham

  2. Department of Experimental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Suze de Zeeuw & Merel Braspenning

Authors
  1. Ineke J. M. van der Ham
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  2. Suze de Zeeuw
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  3. Merel Braspenning
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Correspondence to Ineke J. M. van der Ham .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Thomas Barkowsky

  2. Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA

    Heather Burte

  3. ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Christoph Hölscher

  4. University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Holger Schultheis

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van der Ham, I.J.M., de Zeeuw, S., Braspenning, M. (2017). Is Order Memory of Routes Temporal or Spatial? An Individual Differences Study. In: Barkowsky, T., Burte, H., Hölscher, C., Schultheis, H. (eds) Spatial Cognition X. Spatial Cognition KogWis 2016 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10523. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68189-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68189-4_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68188-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68189-4

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