This experiment studied the possibility for a subject to learn a space under different visual exploration conditions. The active exploration condition (in which the subject himself explored the space by manipulating the mobile) led to better performance than the passive exploration conditions. (in which the subject watched a film or saw a series of static views corresponding to the displacement of a mobile he was not driving). The performance was lower in the two passive conditions. Thus, auto-active exploration brings better knowledge to the spatial features of a given environment than passive viewing of either continuous sweeping or fixed frame views of the environment. These results are compatible with those stressing the importance of active perception to extract invariants in the environment and should be taken into consideration when designing visual interfaces for driving remote-controlled vehicles. Moreover, although there is evidence for a link between the level of performance and the amount of spatial knowledge, it is difficult to draw any conclusions concerning the kinds of spatial knowledge required in such a situation. Indeed, the spatial cues taken into account by the subjects can either be drawn from a survey map type of representation (cartographic) or from a route map type representation (memory of paths followed), or both. The problem is to help the operator shift from one kind of representation to another.
Samenvatting