Visual Attention during Route Learning: A Look at Selection and Engagement

Abstract

Two aspects of visual attention, the selection of environmental features and the engagement of attention on those features, were examined in an experimental study using a slide-presentation simulation of route experience. Results showed that (a) after learning, viewers’ knowledge of spatial relations among high-information regions was more accurate than their knowledge of spatial relations among low-information regions; (b) during learning, viewers were more selective when looking at high-information regions than when looking at low-information regions; (c) during learning, viewers were slower to disengage attention when looking at high-information regions than when looking at low-information regions; and (d) during learning, the most common type of visual activity when viewers saw high-information regions were saccades between landmarks and the path’s vanishing point in the scene. These findings indicate that although route learning is a relatively simple and wellpracticed task, it involves attention in terms of the selection of highly informative regions for in-depth coding of spatial relations.