Reorienting in virtual environments: examining the influence of the number of discrete features on the encoding of geometry by humans

Abstract

Orientation – the process by which animals determine their position in an environment – can be accomplished by using the visually distinct properties of objects or surfaces, known as features (i.e., colour or pattern) or the relationship among objects and surfaces, known as geometry (i.e., wall length or angular information). Although features have been shown to facilitate the encoding of geometry, little is known as to whether restricting one’s viewpoint to include fewer features will still facilitate the encoding of geometry. During this experiment, men and women were trained to search near either an acute or an obtuse corner of a virtual parallelogram-shaped room that contained either three or four discrete and distinctive features. Participants were subsequently tested for their encoding of wall length and angles when the cues were presented in isolation, together, or in conflict. Results showed that the number of features present during training did not influence the encoding of geometry. However, the discrete and distinctive properties of the features overshadowed the encoding of angles by women as well as by participants who were trained with the obtuse corner. Although some groups of participants did not encode angular information when this was the only available geometric cue, all groups weighed angles more heavily than wall length when the cues provided conflicting information. This result suggests that one type of geometric cue (i.e., wall length) can facilitate the encoding of another (i.e., angles).