Abstract
Five experiments performed in a desktop virtual-reality setting investigated the influence of environmental features—that is, noticeable landmarks along the route—on distance estimation. Landmarks were of two types: Either they simply “filled” the route or they “filled” and also segmented it, thereby inducing a hierarchical structuring of the route. Previous research had left the question open of whether a filling or a segmenting feature leads to an overestimation of a distance along the route. Our experiments showed different results dependent on the kind of space: If an environment was learned from a route perspective, filling and segmenting environmental features led to overestimations of distances, while the segmenting of a route induced by a grouping of similar features did not. If the environment was learned from a map that afforded a survey perspective, route structuring induced through a segmenting feature or by phenomenal grouping led to an overestimation of distances, whereas features that merely filled the route did not.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Christian Freksa, Edgar Heineken, and Stephanie Kelter, for comments and discussions. We wish to thank Dan Montello for inspiration and encouragement.
Notes
This experiment was described earlier in Berendt and Jansen-Osmann (Citation1997). Its description is repeated in detail here because it serves as the foundation for the remaining experiments. Experiment 1 and 2 are described in a German paper (CitationJansen-Osmann, 2001).