Route Learning and Detour Finding Through Different Learning Conditions

Route learning and detour finding are crucial tasks in everyday life. Personality and the means of learning a route may affect performance on these navigation tasks. Active navigation has been found to be superior to passive exposure for rout learning. In this study we explored the roles of learning modality and personality on travel time and distance, and errors during route following and detour finding tasks. A three independent groups (driving, map, and passenger) design was employed with several personality, driving, and video game experience covariates. The sample consisted of 36 students from a small liberal arts and sciences college. Individuals in the driving condition who made wrong turns in the testing route made significantly more turnarounds in the detour route than other conditions. There were no differences in wrong turns between conditions in the testing route. Additionally, participants who scored higher for extraversion and open mindedness had significantly greater detour time, detour distance, and detour turnarounds. Learning condition did not have any effects during route testing, however there were main effects on detour time, distance, and turnarounds.