Evaluating the effects of a programming error on a virtual environment measure of spatial navigation behavior

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Computational Neuroscience
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Shared research platforms enhance replicability and data collection in spatial navigation studies.
• Virtual environments are crucial for spatial navigation research but pose challenges for technical error containment.
• Undetected software bugs in shared platforms can propagate across multiple studies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To report the discovery and impact of a software bug in the Virtual Silcton platform.
• To assess the effect of the bug on published spatial navigation research findings.
• To develop a tool for researchers to evaluate the bug's impact on their data.

Main Methods:

• Identified a software bug in Virtual Silcton that stored absolute direction values instead of signed values.
• Collected a new dataset to compare with existing data and assess the bug's impact.
• Developed a diagnostic tool for researchers using Virtual Silcton.

Main Results:

• The bug caused suppression in pointing errors, with greater effects in less accurate navigators.
• The overall impact of the bug on published data was small, contributing to its undetected nature.
• A new dataset confirmed the bug's specific effects on spatial pointing tasks.

Conclusions:

• Shared research tools like Virtual Silcton require rigorous error checking to maintain data integrity.
• The bug's subtle effects highlight the importance of open science practices and collaborative error detection.
• Developing tools to assess past data is crucial for correcting pervasive technical errors in scientific research.