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Updated: Aug 18, 2026

Assessing Human Spatial Navigation in a Virtual Space and its Sensitivity to Exercise
Published on: January 26, 2024
The influence of intentional and incidental learning on acquiring spatial knowledge during navigation
Marieke van Asselen1, Eva Fritschy, Albert Postma
1Psychological Laboratory, Helmholtz Instituut, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan, 2, NL-3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands. m.vanasselen@fss.uu.nl
Abstract:
In order to study the influence of intentional and incidental learning conditions on route learning, young adults walked a route through a university building. Half of the participants focused their attention on the route (intentional learning condition), while the other half did not (incidental learning condition). Five tests of spatial knowledge were employed: a route-length-estimation, landmark recognition, landmark ordering, map-drawing and navigation task. The intentional group performed better than the incidental group on the map-drawing and navigation task. No difference between the intentional and incidental group was found on the landmark-recognition and landmark-ordering task. Moreover, the intentional group overestimated the walking distance, while the incidental group underestimated it. These results suggest that route knowledge (landmark recognition and landmark ordering) requires less effortful processing than survey knowledge (developing a map-like representation and actual navigation).
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