Enhancing spatial learning under visual cues: A comparative study of virtual environments and perspectives

Spatial learning is a crucial cognitive process through which individuals acquire and retain information about their environment, playing a vital role in real-world applications such as emergency training and urban planning. Recent research has increasingly focused on virtual environments, where visualizations such as path encoding can significantly aid in understanding spatial knowledge, such as escape routes in emergency situations. To explore how different virtual environments and perspectives enhance spatial learning under visualization, this study investigated two different virtual environments — desktop and Virtual Reality (VR) — and the impacts of first-person and third-person perspectives. We developed a prototype based on expert interviews and real-world needs, conducting a between-subjects study involving 48 participants. The experimental design systematically varied the virtual environments and perspectives to assess their effects on participants’ performance of spatial learning under the same visual cues. The focus was on three types of spatial knowledge: landmark knowledge, route knowledge, and survey knowledge. The results indicate that, under the same virtual environment, the third-person perspective is more effective in enhancing survey knowledge, while the first-person perspective is better suited for acquiring landmark knowledge. Furthermore, using the third-person perspective in VR environments and the first-person perspective in desktop environments yields better spatial learning outcomes compared to other conditions.