Wayfinding Behavior and Spatial Knowledge of Adults and Children in a Virtual Environment: The Role of the Environmental Structure

Wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge constitute the two main topics of spatial cognition research with respect to a large-scale or environmental space, that is, a space which is not perceivable from one single vantage point (e.g., Canter & Craig, 1981). Unfortunately, these two aspects of spatial cognition (i.e., wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge) have been addressed separately most of the time, although they are obviously interrelated. It is the main goal of this study to investigate the influence of one particular but mostly neglected factor, namely the environmental structure, on both wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge for adults as well as for children. Wayfinding behavior is made up of the performance to find a way (the wayfinding performance) as well as the orientation behavior in a new environment (exploration behavior) (e.g., Blades, 1997; Jansen-Osmann & Fuchs, 2006). Spatial knowledge, on the other hand, is defined as landmark knowledge, route or procedural knowledge, and survey knowledge (Golledge, 1987; Siegel & White, 1975; Thorndyke, 1981), the latter referring to the hierarchical organization of spatial knowledge (Hirtle & Jonides, 1985; Stevens & Coupe, 1978; for comprehensive studies see e.g., McNamara, 1986; McNamara & LeSueur, 1989; McNamara, Hardy, & Hirtle, 1989; McNamara, Ratcliff, & McKoon, 1984). Some assumptions, although underspecified, exist about the relationship between wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge acquisition: Liben (1988, 1999) distinguished between doing and knowing in spatial cognition research. Similarly, Creem and Proffitt (1998, 2001) assumed that there are two different systems for processing spatial information: on the one hand, a perceptionaction system where spatial information is provided for guided action or motor responses, and on the other hand a cognitive system which contains internal representations. Whereas wayfinding behavior is based on viewpoint updating, the measurements of spatial cognition tasks demand a cognitive processing of spatial information. Additionally, our own studies provided evidence that different factors influence these two aspects in a differential way: Whereas the structuring of space by color (Jansen-Osmann & Wieden-