The Utility of Global Landmarks Based on Placement

This study examined if spatial knowledge improved depending on where highlighted landmarks were placed in a virtual city. We varied whether highlighted global landmarks were placed along the route participants viewed during passive navigation or in the distance (e.g., mountain). A total of 278 participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk completed this online study. They were assigned to one of three conditions: 1) local landmarks highlighted along the route, 2) global landmarks (e.g., with a beacon light) highlighted along the route, or 3) global landmarks highlighted in the distance. Following passive navigation to learn the environment, we assessed landmark, route, and survey knowledge. Participants who viewed landmarks along their route (global and local) were better able to recognize landmarks and performed better on one measure assessing survey knowledge. There were no significant differences when assessing route knowledge. The results we found for another measure of survey knowledge were not consistent with our hypothesis. While we did not find a clear general benefit to highlighting on-route landmarks compared with highlighting distant landmarks, for all measures of spatial knowledge, we found partial benefits to two aspects of spatial knowledge. This suggests highlighting landmarks along a route can improve some aspects of spatial knowledge.