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German Conference on Spatial Cognition

Spatial Cognition 2020: Spatial Cognition XII pp 76–87Cite as

Understanding Cognitive Saliency by Using an Online Game

Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNAI,volume 12162)

Abstract

One of the most common definitions of saliency suggests that there are three categories for landmark saliency, these being visual, structural and cognitive [1]. A large number of studies have focused on the afore-mentioned categories; however, there appear to be fewer studies on cognitive saliency than on the other two types of landmark saliency. Hence, in this study, our goal is to better understand the cognitive saliency of potential landmarks. For this purpose, we used an online virtual game, Sea Hero Quest (SHQ), and asked people to watch videos of the game. In the videos, a boat navigates through a waterway/river environment and finds goal locations one by one. People then were asked to answer questions, which aimed to measure their cognitive saliency. Our results suggest that cognitive saliency is closely related to visual and structural saliency in unfamiliar environments.

Keywords

  • Landmarks
  • Saliency
  • Navigation
  • Spatial cognition
  • Virtual environments

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Notes

  1. 1.

    By conditions, we refer 1. weather (clear/foggy weather), 2. map (clear/obscured), 3. environment (5 different environments) conditions, and landmarks (visibility and saliency of landmarks vary).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Architecture, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, UK

    Demet Yesiltepe & Ayse Ozbil Torun

  2. Department of Architecture, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, LA1 4YW, UK

    Ruth Conroy Dalton

  3. Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

    Michael Hornberger

  4. Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Hugo Spiers

Authors
  1. Demet Yesiltepe
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  2. Ruth Conroy Dalton
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  3. Ayse Ozbil Torun
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  4. Michael Hornberger
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  5. Hugo Spiers
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Correspondence to Demet Yesiltepe .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

    Jurǵis Šķilters

  2. Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Dr. Nora S. Newcombe

  3. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    David Uttal

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Yesiltepe, D., Dalton, R.C., Torun, A.O., Hornberger, M., Spiers, H. (2020). Understanding Cognitive Saliency by Using an Online Game. In: Šķilters, J., Newcombe, N., Uttal, D. (eds) Spatial Cognition XII. Spatial Cognition 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12162. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57983-8_6

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