Version 1
: Received: 6 June 2023 / Approved: 7 June 2023 / Online: 7 June 2023 (03:04:51 CEST)
How to cite:
Bock, O.; Huang, J. Determinants of Task Difficulty in Route Following Tasks: An Experimental Study on Human Spatial Navigation. Preprints2023, 2023060471. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202306.0471.v1
Bock, O.; Huang, J. Determinants of Task Difficulty in Route Following Tasks: An Experimental Study on Human Spatial Navigation. Preprints 2023, 2023060471. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202306.0471.v1
Bock, O.; Huang, J. Determinants of Task Difficulty in Route Following Tasks: An Experimental Study on Human Spatial Navigation. Preprints2023, 2023060471. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202306.0471.v1
APA Style
Bock, O., & Huang, J. (2023). Determinants of Task Difficulty in Route Following Tasks: An Experimental Study on Human Spatial Navigation. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202306.0471.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Bock, O. and Ju-Yi Huang. 2023 "Determinants of Task Difficulty in Route Following Tasks: An Experimental Study on Human Spatial Navigation" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202306.0471.v1
Abstract
When following a prescribed route, we need to decide at each intersection which way to proceed. The present work addressed several factors that might influence the difficulty of this decision making process. Participants repeatedly followed a route through a virtual maze with twelve or eighteen intersections, and with two or three choices per intersection. One group performed task S, which promoted decision making by the serial order strategy since all intersections looked alike. Another group performed task SA, which allowed the use of the serial order and the associative cue strategy since unique visual cues were presented at each intersection. We found that in both tasks, participants were more accurate in making decisions on routes with twelve rather than eighteen intersections, and more accurate by a similar amount on routes with two rather than three choices. Reaction time in task SA was reciprocal to accuracy; reaction time in task S was generally lower and route-independent. Accuracy in task SA was similar for participants who experienced smooth transport across intersections and those who experienced abrupt transport, while accuracy in task S was lower for participants who experienced smooth rather than abrupt transport across intersections. We conclude that the number of intersections and the number of choices were equivalent determinants of route following difficulty. We further conclude that optic flow during turns at intersections interfered with anticipatory decision making in task S; hence natural (smooth) transport across intersections did not enhance route following performance.
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
