Finding one’s way is a fundamental daily activity and has been widely studied in the field of geospatial cognition. Immersive virtual reality (iVR) techniques provide new approaches for investigating wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge acquisition. It is currently unclear, however, how wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge acquisition in iVR differ from those in real-world environments (REs). We conducted an RE wayfinding experiment with twenty-five participants who performed a series of tasks. We then conducted an iVR experiment using the same experimental design with forty participants who completed the same tasks. Participants’ eye movements were recorded in both experiments. In addition, verbal reports and postexperiment questionnaires were collected as supplementary data. The results revealed that individuals’ wayfinding performance is largely the same between the two environments, whereas their visual attention exhibited significant differences. Participants processed visual information more efficiently in RE but searched visual information more efficiently in iVR. For spatial knowledge acquisition, participants’ distance estimation was more accurate in iVR compared with RE. Participants’ direction estimation and sketch map results were not significantly different, however. This empirical evidence regarding the ecological validity of iVR might encourage further studies of the benefits of VR techniques in geospatial cognition research.

Maps based on virtual reality (VR) are evolving and are being increasingly used in the field of geography. However, the advantages of VR based on the map use processes of users over desktop-based environments (DEs) are not fully understood. In this study, an experiment was conducted in which 120 participants performed map use tasks using maps and globes in VR and DE. The participants’ eye movements and questionnaires were collected to compare the map use performance differences. We analyzed the general metrics, information searching and processing metrics of participants (e.g. response time, RT; average fixation duration, AFD; average saccade duration, ASD; saccade frequency, SF, etc.) using maps and globes in different environments. We found that the participants using VR processed information more efficiently (AFD_DE = 233.34 ms, AFD_VR = 173.09 ms), and the participants using DE had both a significantly shorter response time (RT_DE = 88.68 s, RT_VR = 124.05 s) and a shorter visual search time (ASD_DE = 60.78 ms, ASD_VR = 112.13 ms; SF_DE = 6.30, SF_VR = 2.07). We also found similarities in accuracy, satisfaction and readability. These results are helpful for designing VR maps that can adapt to human cognition and reflect the advantages of VR.

Culture affects people’s spatial memory, mental representations, and spatial reference frameworks. People with different cultural backgrounds show different degrees of spatial ability. However, the current research does not reveal the shaping of spatial ability by culture from the perspective of visual cognition. In this study, we used eye tracking and designed mental rotation, spatial visualization, spatial orientation, and spatial correlation tasks to compare the spatial ability of Chinese and Malaysian Chinese people. The results showed that there were some minimal differences between them. Chinese participants had higher accuracy in the mental rotation task, showed more fixation to landmarks in spatial orientation, showed more fixation to the main map, and switched more frequently between the two thematic maps when judging spatial relationships. As “cultural citizens” of China, Malaysian Chinese people’s spatial ability is not only shaped by their own ethnic culture in terms of language but also influenced by foreign races in terms of education, wayfinding tendency, and cognitive style. This study can contribute to the understanding of the influence of culture on spatial ability and its possible causes.

Previous behavior experimental studies indicate that geography education facilitates the development of students’ spatial ability. However, it is unclear how geography education shapes student brain activity and promotes spatial ability. In this article, we proposed a neuroscience-based method to explore the relationship between geography education and spatial ability. We conducted a behavioral experiment with 63 participants and an fMRI experiment with 49 participants. All the participants were divided into groups according to their undergraduate years and majors completed four spatial ability tasks. The fMRI and behavioral results revealed that after four years of geography education, students had greater mental rotation, spatial visualization and spatial relation reasoning abilities than non-geography students. The activation and functional connectivity of brain regions further indicated that geography education improved students’ spatial reference, spatial memory, visual attention and spatial decision-making. Our findings offer new neuroscience evidence that geography education can improve the spatial ability of undergraduate students, and provide new neuroimaging approach for geographic talent cultivation and curriculum assessment.