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Individual differences in navigation and wayfinding

Individual differences are characteristics differentiating people from each other. Certain differing characteristics can potentially represent different groups of populations as gender (males vs females), age (young vs older adults), and others can contribute to express differences within groups (e.g. in the females group) as individual factors in visuospatial domain. .

In the spatial cognition domain, such factors can be:

• Visuospatial Abilities. i.e. the generation, retaining, and transformation of abstract visual images. Visuospatial abilities can be distinguished in sub-factors as spatial perception, spatial visualisation, and mental rotation and measured with specific tasks.
• Spatial-related Inclinations: i.e., the preferences self-reported (using questionnaires) related to spatial and environment information and settings such as spatial anxiety, sense of direction (personal evaluation of one’s ability to orient and locate oneself within an environment), survey and route preference (also called orientation and route strategies; people’s preferred way to represent the environment in map-like or person point of view, pleasure of exploring (individuals who enjoy exploration) and spatial self-efficacy (the belief to be able to accomplish a spatial task).

Evidence

Experimental, correlational and case study approaches are frequently used to find patterns in individual differences. Correlations approach is based on a modality to understand individual differences in navigation and wayfinding abilities to compare groups or examining the relation between variables at the continuous level. Experimental approach examines the causality of the relationship between variables. It manipulates one variable (independent variable) and investigates the impact on environment recall (dependent variable). Case studies approach is used to understand to what extent a particular profile is related to spatial representation and associated features such as, cases of brain lesions or degenerative diseases (involving brain structures and network of cognitive map) or cases of cognitive and behavioural difficulties in acquiring environment information in absence of brain deficits (as in the case of developmental topographical disorientation).

Gender differences

Gender is a source of individual differences in navigation and wayfinding.

Men show more confidence during navigation in comparison to women and in the final environment representation accuracy even the gender difference can be attenuated by some factors (as outcome variables, feedback, familiarity).

Females experience higher levels of spatial anxiety in comparison to men. Further two different wayfinding strategies are used by men and women: women prefer to use route strategy more, whilst men use survey (orientation) strategy more. Route strategy is related to following directional instructions, whilst survey (orientation) strategy is the use of references in the environment in relation to their position.

Examining relations at the continuous level, gender is a predictor that can influence navigation success - both males and females can perform successfully. However, the ability to form mental representations of new environments after navigation is impacted by different patterns of relations involving strategy, beliefs/self-efficacy and visuospatial cognitive abilities. Therefore, both males and females involve the use of visuospatial individual factors, abilities and inclinations, that with different patterns of relations influence navigation and wayfinding performance.

Age differences

The ability to learn the environment and navigate increases with age. Age group comparison studies show that children become able earlier to acquire and to manage egocentric knowledge (as to repeat a path) and later (at least most of evidence) show allocentric knowledge (as expressed by finding shortest paths) even these abilities can be subject to individual differences also in children. In older adults abilities in spatial domain decrease showing a decrease of spatial learning and representation abilities, even the differences between young and older adults are related to type of tasks. In fact older adults are more sensible to decline in allocentric knowledge with respect to the younger ones. Visuo-spatial abilities (as visuospatial working memory and rotation) decline in ageing and attitudes tend to be maintained quite stable; both abilities and attitudes, however, in different extent contribute to maintain the spatial learning and navigation accuracy in elderly.

Further reading

• Meneghetti, C., Miola, L., Toffalini, E., Pastore, M., & Pazzaglia, F. (2021). Learning from navigation, and tasks assessing its accuracy: The role of visuospatial abilities and wayfinding inclinations. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 75, 101614.
• Gazova, I., Laczó, J., Rubinova, E., Mokrisova, I., Hyncicova, E., Andel, R., ... & Hort, J. (2013). Spatial navigation in young versus older adults. Frontiers in ageing neuroscience, 5, 94.
• Munion, A. K., Stefanucci, J. K., Rovira, E., Squire, P., & Hendricks, M. (2019). Gender differences in spatial navigation: Characterizing wayfinding behaviors. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 26(6), 1933-1940.
• Miola, L., Meneghetti, C., Toffalini, E., & Pazzaglia, F. (2021). Environmental learning in a virtual environment: Do gender, spatial self-efficacy, and visuospatial abilities matter?. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 78, 101704.
• Klencklen, G., Després, O., & Dufour, A. (2012). What do we know about aging and spatial cognition? Reviews and perspectives. Ageing research reviews, 11(1), 123–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2011.10.001
• Nazareth, A., Huang, X., Voyer, D. et al. A meta-analysis of sex differences in human navigation skills. Psychon Bull Rev 26, 1503–1528 (2019). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-019-01633-6
• Lohman, D. F. (1996). Spatial ability and g. Human abilities: Their nature and measurement, 97(116), 1.
• Colombo, D., Serino, S., Tuena, C., Pedroli, E., Dakanalis, A., Cipresso, P., & Riva, G. (2017). Egocentric and allocentric spatial reference frames in aging: A systematic review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 80, 605-621
• Lawton, C.A. Gender differences in way-finding strategies: Relationship to spatial ability and spatial anxiety. Sex Roles 30, 765–779 (1994).
• Linn, M. C., & Petersen, A. C. (1985). Emergence and characterization of sex differences in spatial ability: A meta-analysis. Child development, 1479-1498.
• Pazzaglia, F., & De Beni, R. (2001). Strategies of processing spatial information in survey and landmark-centred individuals. European journal of cognitive psychology, 13(4), 493-508.
• Meneghetti, C., Borella, E., Pastore, M., & De Beni, R. (2014). The role of spatial abilities and self-assessments in cardinal point orientation across the lifespan. Learning and Individual Differences, 35, 113-121.