Spatial knowledge acquisition from direct experience in the ...

104 T. Ishikawa, D.R. Montello / Cognitive Psychology 52 (2006) 93–129
Table 2
Timeline of the experiment over 10 sessions
Event/Task order
Session
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Travel U (or S) * * * * * * * * * *
W/in direction/dist. * * * * * * * * * *
Map of U (or S) * * * * *
Travel S (or U) * * * * * * * * * *
W/in direction/dist. * * * * * * * * * *
Map of S (or U) * * * * *
Travel connecting * * * * * * *
B/w direction/dist. G * * * * * * *
Integrated map * * * *
Note. In each session, participants did the tasks with an asterisk (*) from top to bottom. For example, everyone
traveled the U- or S-route Wrst in a session and sketched the integrated map last. Half the participants traveled
the U-route Wrst, and the other half traveled the S-route Wrst. G, guess.
eight pairs of landmarks (in random order) that were used for guessing at the end of
Session 3. At the end of each even-numbered session, the experimenter also asked participants
to draw a sketch map of the two routes together on the same sheet of paper, showing
their spatial relationship. As with the within-route tasks, no feedback was given to participants.
At the very end of the last session, participants were given three questionnaires. First,
they Wlled out the SBSOD questionnaire, as they had before the experiment. Second, they
rated the diYculty of each of the experimental tasks in the Wrst and last sessions. Finally,
the experimenter asked participants whether they had visited or looked at a map of the
study area during the study period. The importance to the research of being forthcoming
was stressed, as was the fact that no penalty would follow from an aYrmative answer.
No participants said they had done either. After these questionnaires were completed, a
map of the study area was shown to participants. Sessions 1–3 took about 75 min each;
Sessions 4–10 took about 90 min each. The timeline of the experiment is summarized in
Table 2.
3. Results
3.1. Aggregate analyses
3.1.1. Names and sequence of landmarks
Participants named landmarks in order of appearance with perfect accuracy; all the participants
correctly ordered the four landmarks on both routes in all sessions.
3.1.2. Direction estimates
To examine the accuracy of participants’ direction estimates, we analyzed absolute
errors. Absolute error is a good index of accuracy in this case, in that it reXects the probability
that a particular participant’s response falls within a particular range around the correct
target (Spray, 1986). An α level of .05 was used for all the statistical tests below, unless
otherwise noted.