Speaker
Description
Spatial navigation is a complex, fundamental ability crucial to daily life and it develops gradually during childhood. Some studies showed that it is possible to promote the development of spatial navigational abilities through specific training. In a recent study, we demonstrated that training based on observational learning - implemented in a real environment - fostered an earlier acquisition of high-level spatial navigational skills in children. The main aim of the present study was to investigate whether the same beneficial effect could also be obtained in a virtual environment. With this aim, we implemented a new navigational computer game based on observational learning that we administered to 19 children (9 M and 10 F, mean age = 7.07± 0.33). To verify the training effect and to investigate the possible generalization to new environments, we administered - or not - the observational training and tested children on a modified version of the Open Field with multiple rewards task. Two navigational tasks were used: one for the egocentric encoding (route-knowledge task) and another one for the allocentric encoding (configural knowledge task). We found that observational training improved both egocentric and allocentric encoding, as testified by some measured parameters, such as time employed to solve the task, distance virtually walked, and search efficiency. An improvement was also observed in the new environment, indicating the presence of a generalization effect. Overall, these preliminary findings seem to confirm the beneficial effect of observational training and extend its effectiveness even in a virtual environment.
