Content uploaded by Raffaella Nori
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Raffaella Nori on Mar 17, 2017
Content may be subject to copyright.
Content uploaded by Raffaella Nori
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Raffaella Nori on Mar 17, 2017
Content may be subject to copyright.
Content uploaded by Raffaella Nori
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Raffaella Nori on Nov 18, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
In: Spatial Memory: Visuospatial Processes… ISBN: 978-1-61668-139-5
Editors: Jacob B. Thomas © 2010 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
123-144
Chapter 5
F
AMILIARITY AND
S
PATIAL
C
OGNITIVE
S
TYLE
:
H
OW
I
MPORTANT
A
RE
T
HEY FOR
S
PATIAL
R
EPRESENTATION
?
Raffaella Nori
1*
& Laura Piccardi
2,3
1
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli Studi di Bologna
2
Dipartimento di Scienze della Salute, Università degli Studi di L’Aquila
3
Centro Ricerche di Neuropsicologia, I.R.C.C.S., Fondazione Santa Lucia,
Roma
A
BSTRACT
How we acquire and represent spatial information is one of the most
important unsolved issues in spatial cognition. Siegel and White (1975)
affirmed that different forms of environmental knowledge are acquired
and represented depending on the type of information selected: landmark,
characterized by environmental patterns that are perceptually salient or
important for the person; route, based on the pathes generally used to
connect landmarks; and survey, an overall configuration of the
environment, similar to a map. According to these authors, anyone can
reach survey representation with extensive experience of the
*
Corresponding author: Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, V.le Berti Pichat, 5,
40127 Bologna, Italy, Phone number: +39 051 2091885m Fax: +39 051 243086, E-mail:
raffaella.nori@unibo.it
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
2
environment. Recently, Pazzaglia and co-workers (2000) demonstrated
that these three types of representations correspond to three different
spatial cognitive styles. Conversely, according to Montello (1998) a pure
landmark or route representation does not exist; indeed, during their first
exposure to the environment, people acquire and represent an overall
survey configuration of it.
Our aim was to determine whether environmental familiarity and/or
spatial cognitive style predict the way we acquire and represent spatial
information.
Forty participants who had different degrees of familiarity with the
Italian city of Bologna took part in the experiment. Familiarity with
Bologna was evaluated using a questionnaire. This city was selected
because it has a small and well-defined centre that can be easily explored
on foot. Participants were further subdivided by spatial cognitive style to
assess its weight in environmental representation. They performed six
spatial tasks concerning Bologna that measured different spatial abilities,
based on Siegel and White’s frameworks (1975).
We found that neither familiarity with the environment nor spatial
cognitive style predict the correct solution of landmark tasks, whereas
both familiarity with the environment and spatial cognitive style predict
the correct solution of route and survey tasks.. Thus, we can affirm that
both familiarity with the environment and spatial cognitive style are
important for acquiring and representing spatial information, but their
involvement depends on task demands. To our knowledge, this is the first
study in which knowledge of a real town has been measured. This
ecological setting allowed us to propose a new model to explain
individual differences in moving successfully through the environment.
I
NTRODUCTION
Few everyday life problems are more fundamental than getting from here
to there. Humans and other animals move about their environments in order to
get to places with food or shelter and other resources; they also have to avoid
threats and dangers such as predator, assaults and other risk factors. Although
navigation is a very important activity in daily life, it is still not clear how we
acquire and mentally represent the environment. In an influential paper, Siegel
and White (1975) argued that the first acquirement and representation of the
environment is landmark, then route and finally survey. Specifically,
“landmark representation” is characterized by environmental patterns that are
perceptually salient or important for people, such as their home. This kind of
spatial representation does not provide any spatial information. The prominent
Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style: How Important Are They…
3
role of landmarks in spatial representation seems to require a special kind of
figurative memory.
“Route representation” is based on landmarks and on the routes generally
used to connect those landmarks. While landmark representation is considered
visual, route representation is predominantly sensorimotor. In fact, a person
memorizes routes or paths like a mental list of distances and directions that
must be followed in precise sequences of motor actions. This representation is
organized on the basis of body references, that is, an egocentric frame of
references or coordinates. It is characterized by sequential rather than spatial
aspects. Each element of the sequence is useful because it follows one element
and leads to another one.
Finally, “survey representation” is an overall configuration of the
environment. It implies the encoding of directions and distances between
places regardless of the person’s position. It is based on allocentric frames of
references or coordinates (e.g., cardinal points) and characterized by a high
level of plasticity.
This model is hierarchical, because landmark representation is
characterized only by the properties of landmark representation; route
representation is characterized by the properties of both landmark and route
representation; and survey representation is characterized by the proprieties of
landmark, route, and survey representation. According to Siegel and White
(1975), anyone can reach survey representation through extensive experience
in the environment.
Recently, Pazzaglia, Cornoldi, and De Beni (2000) and Pazzaglia and De
Beni (2001) demonstrated that these three types of mental representation
correspond to three different cognitive styles. In Pazzaglia and co-workers
(2000), regardless of their ability to navigate a number of participants reported
that they preferred landmark representation as their usual approach for moving
in the environment (Denis, Pazzaglia, Cornoldi, & Bertolo, 1999). Instead,
people who prefer to use patterns that are perceptually salient or important for
them (landmarks) and egocentric coordinates are considered route style users.
Finally, people who use both patterns that are perceptually salient for them and
egocentric and allocentric coordinates are considered survey style users.
Unlike Siegel and White’s model, this theoretical approach (Pazzaglia et al.,
2000; Pazzaglia & De Beni, 2001) hypothesizes that a person can stop at a
specific spatial representation without ever reaching the others. Although both
models are hierarchical, the first one predicts that anyone can reach survey
representation through extensive experience of the environment and the
second one that a person might stop at a particular spatial representation which
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
4
corresponds to his preferred spatial cognitive style (Siegel & White, 1975;
Pazzaglia et al., 2000).
According to Montello (1998), one particularly unconvincing aspect of
Siegel & White’s model is that landmark representation is a necessary
prerequisite for route representation, which, in turn, is a necessary prerequisite
for survey representation. Indeed, several studies have shown that following
minimal navigation through a new environment individuals are able to perform
tasks that require survey knowledge, that is, tasks such as taking shortcuts and
estimating distances or giving directions (Klatzky, Loomis, Golledge,
Cicinelli, Doherty, & Pellegrino, 1990; Landau, Spelke, & Gleitman, 1984;
Loomis, Klatzky, Golledge, Cicinelli, Pellegrino, & Fray, 1993).
In response to these issues, Montello (1998) proposed an alternative
framework to explain how people acquire mental representations of space.
He suggested five major tenets:
1. There is no stage at which pure landmark or route knowledge exists,
but metric configurational knowledge begins to accrue on first
exposure to a novel place;
2. With additional locomotor and perceptual experience of the
environment, familiarity with the place increases, resulting in more
extensive, complete, and accurate knowledge of the place;
3. A qualitative shift in environmental knowledge results from the
integration of knowledge about separately learned places. That is,
spatial knowledge about an environment experienced during on
separate occasions is stored together in memory. This integration
transforms spatial knowledge into more complex, hierarchically
organized knowledge;
4. People with equal levels of exposure to an environment differ in the
extent and accuracy of their spatial knowledge;
5. Finally, linguistic systems of storing and communicating spatial
knowledge provide for the existence of pure topological knowledge,
or at least non metric knowledge. However, non metric knowledge
exists in addition to metric spatial knowledge but not as a precursor or
intrinsic part of it.
In his model, Montello also posited that individual differences, especially
in the ability to integrate separately learned places, were so large that they
deserved special note. Otherwise, they could confound general statements
about the acquisition of spatial mental representation (Montello, 1998). For
Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style: How Important Are They…
5
instance, there could be many individual differences related to metric
information (i.e., distance estimation), how it is acquired, how precise it is and
whether integration spatial information occurs. In particular, gender
differences seem to account partially for the contrasting results reported on
these topics (Miller & Santoni, 1986; Ward, Newcombe, & Overton, 1986).
Only few studies have experimentally examined changes in the accuracy
of people’s spatial knowledge over time (Gärling, Böök, Lindberg, & Nilsson,
1981; Herman, Blomquist, & Klein, 1987; Ishikawa & Montello, 2006;
Iachini, Ruotolo, & Ruggiero, 2009). In the studies by Gärling and co-workers
(1981) and Herman and co-workers (1987) participants travelled a route. Once
they had learned it, they were asked to estimate distance and direction.
Participants repeated this set of route travel and estimation tasks several times.
Adult participants acquired landmark representation immediately and they
improved their direction and distance estimates in the early sessions. The
authors never observed perfect accuracy in the participants’ performances.
These results support Montello’s framework.
In an extensive longitudinal study, Ishikawa and Montello (2006)
examined 24 college students individually as they drove along two routes in a
previously unfamiliar neighbourhood over 10 weekly sessions. Their results
contrasted with the predictions of Montello’s framework and Siegel and
White’s model. In fact, although some participants’ knowledge improved
fairly continuously over the sessions, as hypothesised by Siegel and White’s
model, most participants either manifested accurate metric knowledge from
the first exposure or never manifested accurate metric knowledge, in
agreement with Montello’s framework. Therefore, they interpreted these
results on the basis of large individual differences (Ishikawa & Montello,
2006).
In a recent paper, Iachini and co-workers (2009) reported a study on how
familiarity and gender influence the frame of reference used to represent a
regular real-world environment, in this case an administrative district of
Naples, Italy. Familiar and unfamiliar participants with the experimental
environment were asked to learn the location of three triads of buildings by
walking guided by examiner along a pathway. Participants included
individuals who were either familiar or unfamiliar with the location of the
three triads of buildings. Unfamiliar participants had to learn the location of
the triads by walking along a pathway guided by the examiner. Then, they had
to judge whether the previously learned triad correctly represented the relative
positions among the buildings. They found that the accuracy of the unfamiliar
participants decreased as much as angular size deviated from 0°. By contrast,
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
6
the familiar participants were more accurate at 0°-90°-180°. The authors
suggest that when the environment is familiar people use allocentric frames of
reference, as suggested by Siegel and White’s model. Regarding the effect of
gender, they observed that males were more accurate and faster than females
and that this difference was particularly evident in participants who were
unfamiliar with the environment (Iachini et al., 2009).
Except for the few studies discussed above, the acquisition of spatial
representation has never been investigated in an ecological way. In fact,
learning the environment has always been experimentally guided and, to our
knowledge, no studies have explored its natural acquisition in daily life
navigation of the person’s environment. For this reason, our aim was to
determine whether environmental familiarity, as suggested by Siegel and
White’s model, spatial cognitive style, as suggested by Pazzaglia and co-
workers’ model, and/or individual differences (i.e., sex), as hypothesised by
Montello’s model, predict the way we acquire and represent spatial
information in a real town.
M
ETHOD
Participants
Forty college students from the Department of Psychology at the
University of Bologna who had different degrees of familiarity with the city
took part in the experiment: 28 females and 12 males, whose ages ranged from
19 to 28 years (M = 23.97, SD = 1.84). All participants were right-handed
according to self-report (Salmaso & Longoni, 1985). Familiarity with Bologna
was evaluated using a questionnaire that considered months of stay in
Bologna, ranging from 1 to 348 months (M = 140.88, SD = 142.26). All
participants gave informed written consent before participating in the
experiment.
Experimental Setting and Materials
We investigated spatial knowledge by using a real town, Bologna, selected
for its characteristics. In fact, this town has a small, well-defined centre that
can be easily explored on foot. Our participants adopted “free exploration” to
Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style: How Important Are They…
7
move around the town. Even if the participants were familiar with the different
buildings, monuments and routes in Bologna, we did not ask them to pay
particular attention to them or to their location, because their displacement
behaviour was not experimentally goal-directed. They learned the environment
by means of daily life exploration without any experimental condition
restraints.
Preliminary Phase. To be sure that the participants knew the town by
navigating through it, they had to complete a questionnaire about Familiarity
and Spatial Cognitive Style, which contained questions about how many
months they had been living in Bologna and their knowledge of the different
parts of the city which we will consider in the experimental section. After
analyzing their self-reports, we eliminated two participants because they only
moved through a specific and restricted area of the city (i.e., the railway
station) and only knew the other parts of Bologna from studying a map and not
actually moving through it. Moreover, to evaluate individual spatial cognitive
style we modified some questions deriving from Pazzaglia and co-workers
(2000) and included them in our questionnaire. In order to label individual
spatial cognitive style as landmark, route or survey style, we adopted the
method suggested by Nori and Giusberti (2003).
To be labelled as “landmark”, participants’ score on the questionnaire had
to reflect an 80% preference for the landmark cognitive style. Moreover, their
preferences on the route and survey questions had to be less than 50%.
Furthermore, in order for participants to be labelled as “route” their score
on the questionnaire had to reflect an 80% preference for landmark and route
cognitive style and their preferences on the survey questions had to be 50% or
less.
Finally, participants, who demonstrated at least an 80% preference for
landmark, route and survey questions were labelled as survey style.
Each participant was clearly classifiable in one of the three cognitive
styles; no participant obtained the same score in two or more cognitive styles.
Subsequently, participants were submitted to two spatial tasks to evaluate
whether they had normal spatial ability. Specifically, to test participants’ basic
spatial ability, that is, to recognize landmarks and right and left discrimination,
we respectively used the Photo Task (Nori & Giusberti, 2003, 2006) and the
Money Road Map Test (Money, Alexander, & Walker, 1965). In the Photo
Task, participants were asked to choose the photo (target) they had previously
studied for 3 seconds, out of four subsequently introduced (i.e., one target,
three fillers). The fillers were similar buildings characterized by the presence
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
8
or absence of specific objects such as a flowerpot, a car or a road sign. Each
participant completed seven trials in this task. All responded correctly on at
least 6 items, which is within the norm for this task (Nori & Giusberti, 2006).
The Money Road Map Test (Money et al., 1965) consists of an A4-sized paper
map on which a pathway is traced. Participants are required to imagine they
are moving along the pathway and to indicate verbally whether they should
make a left or a right turn at each change of direction. Unlike the original
version, we allowed the participants to turn the map or to make head and body
movements to give the correct answer in order to avoid mental rotation, which
is a complex spatial ability (e.g., Nori & Giusberti, 2006; Pazzaglia & De
Beni, 2006). This kind of exploration provides a within-map viewpoint, which
is an egocentric reference system. Each participant gave at least 23 out of 30
correct responses, which are within in the normal range (Vingerhoets, Lannoo,
& Bauwens, 1996).
Experimental phase. Subsequently, in the experimental phase, the
participants had to solve 6 spatial tasks that measured different spatial abilities,
based on Siegel and White’s framework (1975).
Landmark Tasks
1. Landmark Production Task (e.g., Giusberti, Nori, & Mercuri, 2009).
Participants were simply asked to list 10 landmarks of Bologna.
Response time was recorded.
2. Landmark Recognition Task. Participants were asked to recognize 10
photos of Bologna’s landmarks out of 20 photos (i.e., 10 targets and
10 fillers, that is, landmarks of other Italian cities with architectural
features similar to those of Bologna; number of correct responses
from 0 to 10) (see figure 1). The order of targets and fillers was
randomised. Latency of response was recorded from the time the
photo was presented until the participant answered.
Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style: How Important Are They…
9
Figure 1. Examples of two landmarks (A. target and B. filler) used in the Landmark
Recognition Task.
These tasks were used to evaluate landmark mental representation ability,
because in order to solve them correctly participants had to represent
perceptually salient patterns mentally without referring to any kind of spatial
information about them.
Route Tasks
1. Path Task (based on Nori & Giusberti, 2006). On an A4 sheet of
paper, participants viewed two pictures (starting position and goal) of
Bologna depicting two well-known landmarks. Then, they were asked
to imagine going from the starting position to the goal by walking
along on a specific path indicated by the experimenter. Three or four
landmarks the person would meet along the path were printed on the
same sheet of paper. The participants’ task was to arrange the
landmarks in the right order according to the previous marked path
(Figure 2).
Participants had to solve 10 trials (number of correct responses from 0
to 10). Latency of response was recorded on each trial from the time
when participants saw the landmarks until they responded;
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
10
Figure 2. Example of a trial in the Path Task.
2. Path Description (based on Denis, et al., 1999). Participants were
given instructions similar to those of Denis and co-workers (1999):
“Image that a person who is in Bologna for the first time asks you
how to go from a particular place to another one on foot, and that you
must tell him/her how to do this. You have to describe the path from
the starting point to the ending point as accurately as possible,
indicating the landmarks along the path and the turns to the left or
right. You must do this for 5 routes, giving information you consider
to be important for the person to reach the desired goal.” All five
routes were selected as variants of typical itineraries in the city of
Bologna and all connected the starting point and the ending point
fairly directly; however, they all deviated from a simple straight line.
Route 1 connected Piazza del Nettuno to the Railway Station (1.5
km), Route 2 connected Piazza Verdi to Due Torri (380 m), Route 3
connected San Vitale to Santa Lucia (900 m), Route 4 connected
Piazza Maggiore to Piazza Santo Stefano (540 m), and finally Route 5
Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style: How Important Are They…
11
connected Piazza Scaravilli to Parco della Montagnola (860 m).
Participants were asked to give an oral description of the five routes.
The order of the routes was randomised and then the same order was
proposed to all participants. Participants’ responses and their response
time for each description were recorded. These tasks were used to
evaluate route mental representation ability. In fact, to solve them
correctly participants had to use linear organization and left-right
discrimination. These properties are considered good predictors of
route mental representation because they reveal the ability to use
egocentric coordinates (e.g, Prestopnik & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2000).
Survey Tasks
1. Landmarks Localisation (e.g., Giusberti et al., 2009). Participants
were asked to locate 10 landmarks of Bologna on an outline map
printed on an A4 sheet of paper (Figure 3). The map was black and
white, two-dimensional scaled with a 1:100 ratio with the
environment. The landmarks were selected on the basis of a pre-test in
which 10 participants had to list the most famous landmarks of
Bologna. We selected those most cited: Due Torri, Piazza Maggiore,
Piazza 8 Agosto, Piazza Santo Sfefano, San Domenico, San Pietro,
the Railway Station, Piazza delle Mercanzie, Piazza Verdi and Via
Indipendenza. Landmark names were printed in alphabetical order on
an A4 sheet of paper. Participants were allowed to use any order they
wished to locate them on the outline map. The experimenter recorded
the order if it was different from the alphabetical one; response time
was also recorded.
2. Rotation Task (modified by Iachini,et al., 2009). Nine landmarks in
the area of Bologna were selected as stimuli based on the following
criteria: they could be easily circumnavigated by moving through the
environment and they were well known landmarks of Bologna. The
nine buildings were combined so as to constitute the following three
triads (figure 4): triad 1 = Due Torri - Piazza delle Mercanzie – Piazza
Santo Stefano; triad 2 = San Petronio – Palazzo Re Enzo – Nettuno;
triad 3 = Railway Station – Parco della Montagnola – Piazza 8
Agosto. Thirty maps were obtained, 10 per each triad. The triads,
printed on an A4 sheet of paper, were black and white two-
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
12
dimensional scaled maps with a 1:1000 ratio with the environment. As
in Iachini and co-workers (2009) study, each triad was shown in its
real orientation (0°) or could be rotated by 45°, 90°, 135° or 180°.
Furthermore, each triad was presented either by preserving the real
positions among the buildings (five correct trials) or by altering their
positions (five incorrect trials).
In order to counterbalance the different trials, we use the Latin Square
design (Grant, 1948). The task was to determine whether the printed
triad correctly represented the real spatial positions among the
buildings. Correct judgements were scored 1 and incorrect judgements
0, maximum score = 30 and minimum = 0. The experimenter used a
stopwatch to measure response latency from when participants saw
the map until they responded.
These tasks measured survey representation. In fact, to solve them
correctly participants rely exclusively on an abstract, internal representation
characterized by a bird’s-eye viewpoint of an object-centred reference system
(e.g., Lawton, 1994, 1996).
The order of the nine cognitive style tasks was randomized. For each
spatial task, except for the Rotation Task, the different trials were randomized
as specified above then the same order was used for all participants (e.g.,
Roskos-Ewoldsen, McNamara, Shelton, & Carr, 1998; Nori & Giusberti,
2003).
For each task a hand-held stopwatch was used to record response time.
Procedure
On a separate day before the experimental session began, the experimenter
met the participants in small groups (5/6 people) in a room at the Department
of Psychology and explained the outline of the experiment to them. Then, the
participants filled in the Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style Questionnaire.
In the afternoon, as soon as the experimenter had finished checking their
questionnaire answers, participants individually performed the Photo Task and
the Road-Map Test. Afterwards they took part in the experimental session
individually and completed the 6 spatial tasks. The experimental session lasted
approximately one hour.
Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style: How Important Are They…
13
Figure 3. The outline map used by participants to locate the 10 landmarks.
Figure 4. Examples of a correct (A.) and incorrect (B.) triad showed in the Rotation
Task.
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
14
R
ESULTS
To evaluate the factors that predict spatial mental representation, we
performed separate multiple regression analyses considering as independent
variables familiarity, spatial cognitive style and sex and as dependent variables
the number of hits and response times in each task.
Landmark Tasks
Landmark Production Task
The multiple regression performed on the number of hits in the Landmark
Production Task revealed no significant differences ( Adjusted R
2
= .04; F
[3, 36]
= 1.62, p = n.s.), neither did the analysis performed on response time (Adjusted
R
2
= .04; F
[3, 36]
= .62, p = n.s.).
Landmark Recognition Task
The multiple regression performed on the number of hits in the Landmark
Recognition Task showed a significant difference ( Adjusted R
2
= .35; F
[3, 36]
=
8.03, p <.001), that is, familiarity (β = .58; t = 4.48, p < .001) was associated
with mental landmark representation. On the contrary, the multiple regression
analysis conducted on response time was not significant (Adjusted R
2
= .08;
F
[3, 36]
= 2.19, p = n.s.).
Route Tasks
Path Task
The multiple regression performed on the number of hits in the Path Task
showed a significant difference (Adjusted R
2
= .28; F
[3, 36]
= 6.06, p < .01), that
is, both familiarity (β = .47; t = 3.51, p < .01) and spatial cognitive style (β =
.29; t = 2.16, p < .05) were predictors of high performance on the task.
Nevertheless, the multiple regression analysis conducted on response time was
not significant (Adjusted R
2
= .08; F
[3, 36]
= 2.19, p = n.s.).
Path Description
Regarding Path Description, we considered the total score obtained by
each participant on the 5 paths and performed separate multiple regression
Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style: How Important Are They…
15
analyses on three different dependent variables: 1) quality of the description
(i.e., a score of 1 was assigned if the given description allowed a person to
reach the goal without getting lost in the environment and a score of zero in
the opposite case); 2) richness of the description (i.e., number of landmarks
reported; range of landmarks: 1-21); 3) ability to use spatial directional
elements in verbal description (such as, to turn right, to turn left, to go straight
ahead). Table 1 presents an example of a skeletal description of Route 1 (from
Piazza del Nettuno to Railway Station) given by two participants with
different levels of familiarity with Bologna.
The multiple regression performed on the quality of the description
revealed a significant difference (Adjusted R
2
= .29; F
[3, 36]
= 6.38, p < .05),
that is, familiarity (β = .53; t = 3.93, p < .001) was statistically significant. The
analysis performed on richness of the description also showed a significant
difference (Adjusted R
2
= .26; F
[3, 36]
= 5.79, p < .01), that is, familiarity (β =
.49; t = 3.43, p < .01) was statistically significant.
The multiple regression conducted on the ability to use spatial directional
elements in verbal description showed a significant difference (Adjusted R
2
=
.14; F
[3, 36]
= 3.11, p < .05), that is, both familiarity (β = .30; t = 2.02, p < .05)
and spatial cognitive style (β = .30; t = 2.04, p < .05) were statistically
significant. Finally, multiple regression analysis conducted on response time
was not significant (Adjusted R
2
= .06; F
[3, 36]
= 1.96, p = n.s.).
Survey tasks.
Landmarks Localisation
Regarding Landmarks Localisation, we computed the absolute distance in
millimetres (mm) on the map (scale 1:100) between the real position and the
participant’s response (i.e., the greater the distance, the larger the error; range
of absolute distance: from 9300 to 90450 mm).
Table 1. Examples of Route 1 descriptions made by participants with different levels of
familiarity with Bologna
Participant with 280 months of
familiarity with Bologna Participant with 23 months of
familiarity with Bologna
You are in Piazza del Nettuno and
you have to cross it. Then, you arrive
at the crossing between Via Rizzoli
You are in Piazza del Nettuno. You
go to Via Indipendenza and then at
the end of the street you turn left and
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
16
and Via Ugo Bassi. You go straight
on Via Indipendenza and pass
through Altero and Piazza 8 Agosto.
You go straight on Via Indipendenza
and you arrive at Montagnola. You
cross the road and turn left. Then, you
cross the road again and you are at
the railway station.
you are at the railway station.
The multiple regression performed on the absolute distance showed a
significant difference (Adjusted R
2
= .11; F
[3, 36]
= 2.67, p < .05), that is,
familiarity (β = -.42; t = -2.80, p < .01) was a predictor of participants’
performance. Finally, the analysis conducted on response time revealed no
differences (Adjusted R
2
= .01; F
[3, 36]
= 1.20, p = n.s.).
Rotation Task
For the Rotation Task, we performed separate multiple regressions on
each angle of rotation (0°-45°-90°-135°-180°) considering as dependent
variable the number of hits and the response time. At 0°-45°, the regression
model showed no significant differences (0°: Adjusted R
2
= .04; F
[3, 36]
= .58, p
= n.s.; 45°: Adjusted R
2
= .02; F
[3, 36]
= .31, p = n.s.). At 90°, the analysis
showed a significant difference (Adjusted R
2
= .15; F
[3, 36]
= 3.45, p < .05), that
is, spatial cognitive style (β = .37; t = 2.54, p < .05) was a predictor of
participants’ performance. At 135° and 180°, the analysis revealed a
significant difference (135°: Adjusted R
2
= .24; F
[3, 36]
= 5.19, p < .05; 180°:
Adjusted R
2
= .18; F
[3, 36]
= 4.02, p < .05). In both cases, the predictive factors
were familiarity (135°: β = .35; t = 2.53, p < .05; 180°: β = .30; t = 2.13, p <
.05) and spatial cognitive style (135°: β = .38; t = 2.79, p < .05; 180°: β = .34; t
= 2.40, p < .05). Response times were never significant, regardless of the angle
of rotation (0°: Adjusted R
2
= .07; F
[3, 36]
= .96, p = n.s.; 45°: Adjusted R
2
= .03;
F
[3, 36]
= .44, p = n.s.; 90°: Adjusted R
2
= .05; F
[3, 36]
= 1.78, p = n.s.; 135°:
Adjusted R
2
= .04; F
[3, 36]
= .60, p = n.s.; 180°: Adjusted R
2
= .03; F
[3, 36]
= .45,
p = n.s.).
Finally, we found no effects linked to gender differences in any of the
tasks.
Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style: How Important Are They…
17
C
ONCLUSIONS
In this study, we set out to investigate which model of spatial
representation acquisition fits best with participants’ performance in a real
environment learned by means of “free-exploration” and considering months
of stay as level of familiarity with the town. Our results showed that for
landmark representation, an important distinction has to be made with respect
to tasks. In fact, the first task (Landmark Production), in which participants
had to list ten landmarks of Bologna, assessed only semantic knowledge of the
town. Instead, the second task (Landmark Recognition) measured figurative
memory and the ability to discriminate a town landmark among similar fillers.
Navigation through the environment was not required in the first task, because
this type of knowledge is encyclopaedic in nature. In fact, Landmark
Recognition does not require spatial ability. However, performance of the
second task required having explored the environment previously. For this
reason, Siegel and White (1975) considered it the first step in spatial
representation and in Pazzaglia and co-workers’ model (2000) a landmark
style corresponds to a poor and less efficient style of navigation. Differently,
Montello’s model (1998) suggests that accuracy of detail increases with
familiarity. Our results showed that, regardless of familiarity and cognitive
style, in Landmark Production participants were able to list town landmarks
and that in Landmark Recognition familiarity predicted performance. These
data seem to support both Siegel and White’s model and that of Pazzaglia and
co-workers. Regarding Montello’s framework, familiarity should predict
performance on both tasks. However, the list length constraint may have
prevented participants with higher town familiarity from making longer and
more detailed lists.
In route representation, we found that familiarity predicted participants’
performance only in the ability to correctly reassemble a path, in the richness
and in the ability to use spatial elements in verbal description spatial, while
spatial cognitive style is predictive of a good performance only regarding the
ability to reassemble a path correctly and regarding the richness and the ability
to use spatial elements in verbal description. These results support both Siegel
and White’s and Pazzaglia et al’s models but not Montello’s prediction. In
fact, performances improved with familiarity and, as suggested by Pazzaglia
and co-workers (2000), the higher spatial ability is the higher the performances
obtained, because survey cognitive style individuals can easily shift strategy
depending on the task requirement, whereas route cognitive style individuals
use their preferred strategy and landmark cognitive style individuals are the
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
18
only ones unable to use spatial references to solve the tasks. These results are
also in line with those of Iaria and co-workers (2003) who found that human
participants spontaneously adopt different strategies to solve a navigation task
and that these strategies lead to differential neural activities. Their findings
provide evidence of a shift in the neural mechanisms of the human brain and
are consistent with and extend previous work on rodents (Packard &
McGaugh, 1996; White & McDonald, 2002).
In survey tasks, high familiarity always predicts good performance, but
spatial cognitive style is predictive only when the task requires mental
rotation, specifically at 90°, 135° and 180°. This type of estimation involves
allocentric frames of reference that improve with increased familiarity and
with high spatial abilities. Therefore, our evidence agrees with Siegel and
White’s and Pazzaglia and co-workers’ models. However, based on the
predictions of Montello’s model metric and nonmetric knowledge are not
acquired simultaneously, at least in a real environment. It is important to note
that, differently from research in line with this model (e.g., Klatzky, et al.,
1990; Loomis, et al., 1993), our study was carried out in a large natural
complex environment, that is, a city, not in a simple college environment or in
a building and not in a restricted laboratory setting. Our ecological setting
allows us to propose a new model to explain individual differences in moving
successfully through the environment.
In fact, we propose the Environmental Knowledge Model (EKM) in which
the higher the spatial cognitive load, the more spatial cognitive style predicts
success in navigation. Therefore, individuals who are able to shift strategy and
to have a flexible mental representation perform better than individuals with
an inflexible representation of space and low spatial competence. Regardless
of their familiarity with the environment, individuals with high spatial abilities
fit easily into the environment despite its complexity. Thus, individual
differences come into play only when spatial ability requirements increase. In
any case, environmental familiarity is crucial in each environmental mental
representation (landmark, route and survey). In fact, regardless of their spatial
cognitive style (see figure 5), the higher individuals’ familiarity with the
environment is, the better their performances are.
Gender differences are a different matter. We did not observe any
differences between males and females, in line with previous studies on real-
world spatial tasks that found minimal differences when environments were
familiar and much greater differences when they were unfamiliar (see
Montello, Lovelance, Golledge, & Self, 1999). It is also possible that we did
not observe differences because our sample (although we balanced participants
Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style: How Important Are They…
19
for degree of familiarity) was too small to show the presence of a gender
effect.
In summary, we can affirm that both familiarity with the environment and
spatial cognitive style are important for acquiring and representing spatial
information, but their involvement depends on task demands.
Figure 5. Environmental Knowledge Model (EKM): predictors in relation to task
demands.
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
20
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Selena Brusa for her help in collecting the data.
R
EFERENCES
Denis, M., Pazzaglia, F., Cornoldi, C. & Bertolo, L. (1999). Spatial discourse
and navigation: An analysis of route directions in the city of Venice.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 13, 145-174.
Gärling, T., Böök, A., Lindberg, E. & Nilsson, T. (1981). Memory for the
spatial layout of the everyday physical environment: Factors affecting rate
of acquisition. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 1, 263-277.
Giusberti, F., Nori, R. & Mercuri, N. (2009). Vivere e orientarsi nella città di
Cesena: la mappa mentale della città, fra differenze cross-culturali e
generazionali. In A. Martelli, F. Giusberti & E. Cicognani (Eds.), Cesena
oggi. Vivere, condividere e orientarsi tra genere, genti e generazioni (pp.
49-76). Cesena: Il Ponte Vecchio.
Grant, D. A. (1948). The Latin Square principle in design and analysis of
psychological experiments. Psychological Bulletin, 45, 427-442.
Herman, J. F., Blomquist, S. L. & Klein, C. A. (1987). Children’s and adults’
cognitive maps of very large unfamiliar environments. British Journal of
Developmental Psychology, 5, 61-72.
Iachini, T., Ruotolo, F. & Ruggiero, G. (2009). The effects of familiarity and
gender on spatial representation. Journal of Environmental Psychology,
29, 227-234.
Iaria, G., Petrides, M., Dagher, A., Pike, B. & Bohbot, V. D. (2003). Cognitive
strategies dependent on the hippocampus and caudate nucleus in human
navigation: variability and change with practice. The Journal of
Neuroscience, 23(13), 5945-5952.
Ishikawa, T. & Montello, D. R. (2006). Spatial knowledge acquisition from
direct experience in the environment: Individual differences in the
development of metric knowledge and the integration of separately
learned places. Cognitive Psychology, 52, 93-129.
Klatzky, R. L., Loomis, J. M., Golledge, R. G., Cicinelli, J. G., Doherty, S. &
Pellegrino, J. W. (1990). Acquisition of route and survey knowledge in the
absence of vision. Journal of Motor Behaviour, 22, 19-43.
Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style: How Important Are They…
21
Landau, B., Spelke, E. & Gleitman, H. (1984). Spatial knowledge in a young
blind child. Cognition, 16, 225-260.
Lawton, C. A. (1994). Gender differences in way-fi nding strategies:
Relationship to spatial ability and spatial anxiety. Sex Roles, 30, 765-779.
Lawton, C. A. (1996). Strategies for indoor way-finding: The role of
orientation. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 16, 137-145.
Loomis, J. M., Klatzky, R. L., Golledge, R. G., Cicinelli, J. G., Pellegrino, J.
W. & Fray, P. A. (1993). Nonvisual navigation of blind and sighted:
Assessment of path integration ability. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 122, 73-91.
Miller, L. K. & Santoni, V. (1986). Sex differences in spatial abilities:
Strategic and experimental correlates. Acta Psychologica, 62(3), 225-235.
Money, I., Alexander, D. & Walker, H. T (1965). Manual: A stundardised
road-map test of direction sense. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Montello, D. R. (1998). A new framework for understanding the acquisition of
spatial knowledge in large-scale environments. In M. J. Egenhofer, & R.
G. Golledge (Eds.), Spatial and temporal reasoning in geographic
information systems (pp. 143-154). New York: Oxford University Press.
Montello, D. R., Lovelance, K. L., Golledge, R. G. & Self, C. M. (1999). Sex-
related differences and similarities in geographic and environmental
spatial abilities. Annals of the Association of the American Geographers,
89, 515-534.
Nori, R. & Giusberti, F. (2003). Cognitive styles: Errors in the directional
judgements. Perception, 32, 307-320.
Nori, R. & Giusberti, F. (2006). Predicting cognitive styles from spatial
abilities. American Journal of Psychology, 119(1), 67-86.
Packard, M. G. & McGaugh, J. L. (1996) Inactivation of hippocampus or
caudate nucleus with lidocaine differentially affects expression of place
and response learning. Neurobiological Learning Memory, 65, 65-72.
Pazzaglia, F. & De Beni, R. (2006). Are people with high and low mental
rotation abilities differently susceptible to the alignment effect?
Perception, 35(3), 369-383.
Pazzaglia, F. & De Beni, R. (2001). Strategies of processing spatial
information in survey and landmark-centered individuals. European
Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 13(4), 493-508.
Pazzaglia, F., Cornoldi, C. & De Beni, R. (2000). Differenze individuali nella
rappresentazione dello spazio: Presentazione di un questionario
autovalutativo [Individual differences in spatial representation and in
Raffaella Nori & Laura Piccardi
22
orientation ability: Presentation of a self-report questionnaire]. Giornale
Italiano di Psicologia, 3, 627-650.
Prestopnik, J. L. & Roskos-Ewoldsen, B. (2000). The relations among
wayfinding strategy use, sense of direction, sex, familiarity, and
wayfinding ability. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 20, 177-191.
Roskos-Ewoldsen, B., McNamara, T. P., Shelton, A. L. & Carr, W. (1998).
Mental representations of large and small spatial layouts are orientation
dependent. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and
Cognition, 24, 215-226.
Salmaso, D. & Longoni, A. M. (1985). Problems in the assessment of hand
preference. Cortex, 21(4), 533-549.
Siegel, A. W. & White, S. H. (1975). The development of spatial
representations of large-scale environments. In H. W. Reese (Ed.)
Advances in child development and behavior (vol. 10; 9-55). New York:
Academic Press.
Vingerhoets, G., Lannoo, E. & Bauwens, S. (1996). Analysis of the Money
Road-Map Test Performance in Normal and Brain-Damaged Subjects.
Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 11(1), l-9.
Ward, S. L., Newcombe, N. & Overton, W. F. (1986). Turn left at the church,
or three miles north: A study of direction giving and sex differences.
Environment and Behavior, 18, 192-213.
White, N. M. & McDonald, R. J. (2002). Multiple parallel memory systems in
the brain of the rat. Neurobiological Learning Memory, 77, 125-184.
