Supporting spatial learning in virtual environments.

This thesis explores the acquisition of spatial knowledge as a means to support wayfinding in virtual environments. Specifically, the thesis presents an investigation intothe potential benefits one might gain through the application of a variety of tools, each ofwhich has been designed to support one of the three stages of cognitive map development- landmark-based representation, route-based representation, and survey-basedrepresentation (Siegel & White, 1975). Each tool has been evaluated with respect toimprovements in wayfinding, and also in their support for environmental learning.Measures were taken of each tool used in isolation, and also when used together as acomplete toolset.The between-subjects evaluation process involved 101 participants, randomly assigned toone of five conditions. Each participant was asked to navigate a virtual environment tolocate three specific items. To evaluate wayfinding, participants were asked to performthe same task on six occasions within the same session. After discovering all items, ameasure indicating route efficiency was recorded. On completing all six trials participantswere asked to produce a map of the virtual environment. It was hypothesised that thepresence of tools would improve the acquisition of spatial knowledge, and thus routeefficiency and map production.Comparing the 'no-tool' and the 'all tool' conditions, a 2x6 repeated measures ANOVAfound that when providing the tools concurrently there was a statistically significantimprovement in the efficiency of route taken (F(1,38)=4.63,