Layout of Reference Points During Navigation: Effects of a Central Reference Point as Anchor

This study examined the effects of two variables on spatial learning: the objects’ array (with or without a central reference point) and the learning method (virtual walk through or seeing still images). After learning the objects’ locations and their positional relations in a virtual room in egocentric reference frames, participants judged the directions to a target from an imaginary position in the room. The results revealed that having a central reference point facilitated learning, especially in the virtual-walk condition with a central node. The findings are discussed in terms of the interactions between the effect of the central reference point and virtual walk and the relationship between intensive encoding in egocentric reference frames and stored representations of the layout in environmental reference frames.