Learning to Orient Using a Map Display: Evidence from Eye Tracking

Abstract. Eight individuals participated in an experiment requiring them to identify the position of a viewer on a map given the viewer’s egocentric perspective of the space. Performance data indicated that response times decreased significantly over the course of the experiment, but accuracy did not improve. An analysis of eye tracking data showed that the speedup in participant performance was primarily a reflection of participants shifting attention between the two perspectives of the space less often. This finding suggests that the improvement resulted from reduced efforts to verify the hypothesized relationship between the views, but that identifying corresponding features remained as a significant challenge