This is not the way: global directional cues do not improve spatial learning in an immersive virtual environment

Spatial navigation relies on extracting environmental information to determine where to go. To support navigation behavior, navigational aids, such as maps, compasses, or global positioning systems (GPSs), offer access to easily extractible information, but do these aids enhance spatial memory? Here, we propose the hypothesis that navigation aids support navigation behavior when they are available but do not necessarily enhance navigation by improving the memory of a space. For example, a compass provides a global reference direction and bearing, showing where north is but may not result in a more accurate representation of an environment without the compass. We present two experiments evaluating whether people learned a large-scale, immersive virtual environment better when provided with a global reference direction. We explored whether participants used the provided reference direction to anchor their mental representation of the environment, i.e., whether their alignment of their mental map matched the cued direction. In the first (preregistered) experiment, we found no evidence of a difference in spatial memory performance between those with the compass available and those without ( n = 54). The second experiment ( n = 67) also revealed no difference in participants’ environmental knowledge between a compass condition or a mountain range, which provided a global directional cue in a more salient and concrete form. The exploratory results revealed that the participants did not use either cue as a reference direction. Our results inform theories on how reference directions support navigation and, more broadly, how external cues are incorporated (or not) into cognitive representations.