Discussion of Behavior Results

The cognitive styles might be regarded as individual’s consistent approach to process the information during recall and thinking [50]-[51]. The relationships of styles were observed behaviors, such as learning performance, learning preferences, subject preferences [52]. Conventional training design methodologies played the important role so that we designed the training state and testing state for different purposes. Subjects had sufficient searching time when subjects searched the target in the training state. The accommodation of spatial navigation in the training design process had the potential to improve the efficiency of individual performance. The process could be seen the cognitive styles of navigation. We determined the performance of subjects in the testing state. The males needed fewer learning trials (2.77±0.39) than females (4.5±0.39) to fulfill 100% success rate. The phenomenon appeared that males were more familiar with the virtual reality environment than females in the early trials.

The cognitive functions for gender-specific performance difference were well known [53]-[54]. The behavioral research demonstrated that women rely predominantly on landmark cues, whereas men use both geometric and landmark cues [55]. For previous research, males were better spatial perception ability than females in the spatial experiment [56]. Both types of landmarks might be provided with different help of guide for subject and both types of landmarks differenced dimension that affected strategy choice. Subjects could use the landmarks as references or make choices with respect to moving in the environment. The global landmarks were used as direct goals, whereas the local landmarks were used as intermediate goals. We observed the improvement of the searching time and path the ratio in the behavioral

experiment.

We also found the different performances of gender. In comparison of searching time, males spent less searching time than females for each trial in both types of landmarks. Males had better performance of searching time than females. Subjects sometimes needed to rotate their view to decide the direction in order to search the target so that ability of rotation skills possessed influence about searching time. In comparison of path ratio with respect to gender, females had a little better performance of corrected travel distance than males in the local landmarks environment. The phenomenon was appeared that males wasted more redundant walking path than females in the local landmarks environment. Females effectively adopted the local landmarks to navigate the virtual maze. Males and females had similar corrected path length in the global condition. In global landmarks environment, all males and females effectively made use of global landmarks to determine the direction during navigating. The closest landmarks around the target played the important role for subjects. In global condition, subjects could easily know where they were for a short while in the maze but this was not easy matter for subjects to know the location in the local condition. When subjects decided the direction to walk in the global condition, subjects would quite easily choose the shortest path. Therefore, subjects would not waste redundant walking in the global condition.

The empirical navigation was depended on practice and the different strategies were affected searching style. We also determined the detailed performance for males or females in the different condition. Males spent the similar amount of searching times in both types of landmark environments. Females spent less amount of searching time in the local than in the global condition. In comparison of path ratio with respect to landmarks, both of males and females had shorter corrected travel

distance in the global condition than in the local environment. The phenomenon appeared that the global landmarks played the role as beacons to guide the subjects the direction. As a result, subjects would not waste too many redundant walking paths form the information of the global landmarks. To sum up the females’ performance was different between searching time and path ratio. Subjects would waste the searching time which was constructed from walking time, rotating time and recalling time. The searching time could not absolutely present the ability of navigation. We considered the improved trend of the searching time. Females got better and better performance of the searching time. The path ratio presented the familiarity with the virtual environment.

Because subjects were randomly transformed to another position far away from the target in the first state, then even the same target would not be necessarily corresponded to the same initial position. For this reason, subjects might have different walking path in the different navigating task and the performance of subjects was slight ups and downs. The overall trend gradually progressed.

After subjects completed the experiment, subjects were asked to write the questionnaire. We found that all subjects could not be able to describe the integrant structure of the landmarks’ location about both type landmarks. Subjects could mark a part of landmarks surrounding target in the global condition. Subjects could only describe the landmarks that were close to the target in the local condition. Subjects only described the relative position between the target and landmarks. It was difficult for subjects to describe the entire map with both landmarks. It seemed that subjects memorized the landmarks related to the target and subjects played less attention to other landmarks. There was different weight of landmarks according to targets. The landmarks closed to the target possessed the most significant help so that subjects

memorized these relative landmarks to search the target. The other landmarks played important role of assistance to cognize where subjects was.

In the EEG experiment, females had been familiar with the virtual environment.

Females had shorter corrected travel distance in the global condition than in the local environment, too. It was obviously that there was stable performance in the global condition. Females still wasted redundant walking path in the local condition.