Virtual Reality for Navigation Skills

Reported September 2006

BALTIMORE (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Are you one of those people who needs a map and a compass to travel, but still manage to get lost? Or can you find your way around easily, with little help to guide the way? Now, vision researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore want to find out why some people are better at navigating than others.

"The hypothesis is that the good navigators are using information that they have stored in their brain to help guide them in their navigation," Kathleen Turano, Ph.D., a vision researcher at Johns Hopkins, tells Ivanhoe.

To put this theory to the test, volunteers first navigate their way through a virtual forest to a specific tree. Then, their side -- or peripheral vision -- is reduced. Researchers found when visual information is taken away, poor navigators only use what they currently see to guide the way, but good navigators use both their memory of the environment and what they see at the moment to get from one point to another more efficiently.

Turano says, "If you start paying attention to different landmarks in the environment, they can actually help you in your navigation skills." Developing and using good mental pictures of the world around you could get you one step closer to better finding your way around.

Researchers will use the information from the virtual reality test to help people with visual impairment diseases, like glaucoma, to train patients to better use stored memories of the environment to help guide their way when they start losing vision.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Kathleen Turano, Ph.D.
Ophthalmologist
Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD
(410) 502-6434
kturano@jhmi.edu

Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
Santa Monica, CA 90406
(310)394-1811
http://www.hfes.org

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