Active Versus Passive Acquisition of Spatial Knowledge While Controlling a Vehicle in a Virtual Urban Space in Drivers and Non-Drivers

Abstract

Historically, real-world studies have indicated a spatial learning advantage for people who actively explore the environment they inhabit as opposed to those whose experience is more passive. A common contrast is made between the spatial learning of car drivers and passengers. However, compared with walking and other forms of transportation, car-driving experience per se has a special status. An experiment was conducted to explore the dual hypotheses that active explorers learn more about the layout of a virtual environment (VE) than passive observers and that real-world car drivers will learn more regardless of their experimental active/passive status. Participants explored a virtual model of a small town in active/passive, pairs. Active exploration was self-directed and goal driven, and all learning tasks were explicit. Consistent with many earlier studies in VEs, there was no benefit from activity (controlling exploration/movement), arguably because input control competes with spatial information acquisition. When participants were divided according to whether they were licensed drivers or not, the results showed that drivers were significantly more accurate than non-drivers at indicating the positions of target locations on a map, in both the active and passive conditions. An interaction showed that in the active condition, drivers had significantly better route scores than non-drivers, and better than drivers in the passive condition. Driving may therefore be beneficial for spatial abilities over and above the general benefits of “activity” and when spatial skills are examined in VEs, driver experience is an important criterion that should be taken into account.