Long-term landmark and route memory retention acquired in a real-world map-aided navigation task

The visualization of landmarks in mobile maps has become a popular countermeasure to the negative effect navigation aids have on spatial learning. Landmarks are salient environmental cues that serve as cognitive anchors during navigation, facilitating spatial memory formation and long-term retention. However, longitudinal studies assessing long-term spatial memory retention acquired during mobile map-assisted navigation in the real world and what role visualized landmarks play in this context are still scarce. We report on a longitudinal study to assess long-term spatial memory retention of wayfinders who, two years prior, navigated only once a real-world route prescribed with a mobile map aid enriched with visually salient task-relevant landmarks. We report preliminary results on their long-term memory retention of acquired landmark and route knowledge. We found that participants retained meaningful long-term landmark and route knowledge over the two-year study period. While landmark knowledge decreased over the test-retest sessions, gained route knowledge was unaffected. These ecologically valid results contribute to a better understanding of spatial memory formation and long-term retention after one route exposure through a real-world environment, aided by a mobile map enriched with salient landmarks.