INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN WORKING MEMORY, SENSE OFDIRECTION, AND ROUTE-LEARNING

摘要

The current experiment examined the role of working memory components during route-learningas a function of Sense of Direction. Individuals with good or poor sense of direction (GSD/PSD)were selected a priori. Participants learned routes while performing working memory tasksconsisting of spatial interference (SI) or verbal interference (VI). Previous empirical researchindicates that GSDs rely on visual-spatial strategies while PSDs rely on verbal strategies fornavigation. Based on Baddeley’s (1992) working memory model we therefore expected routelearning performance to be differentially disrupted by SI in GSDs and VI in PSDs. Providingpartial support for our prediction, GSDs took more time and made more errors in routes learnedduring SI relative to VI, and PSDs were slower when traversing routes learned under VI relativeto SI. Our findings show strong individual differences in route-learning performance and providesupport for tailoring navigation systems and training programs to reflect these differences.