Active exploration vs. passive observation in virtual navigation: The role of exploration quality and individual differences

Active navigation involves direct control over movement and decision-making, whereas passive observation entails viewing another individual's exploration. Although active engagement is often assumed to benefit spatial learning, findings in desktop virtual environments remain mixed. This study examined whether active exploration versus passive observation differentially influences spatial knowledge acquisition in a desktop virtual navigation task, and whether exploration quality or individual differences in cognitive ability account for performance variability. Participants either actively navigated a virtual environment using a joystick or passively observed a yoked recording of another participant's navigation, ensuring identical visual input across conditions. Spatial knowledge was assessed using an overhead map drawing task and a route recall task. Across outcomes, actors and observers did not differ significantly in overall map accuracy or route recall, nor did they have any advantage for active navigators on any map drawing components. Exploration quality did not predict spatial learning for either group. In contrast, mental rotation ability consistently predicted better map drawing performance and fewer route recall errors, independent of learning condition. These findings indicate that, under desktop virtual navigation conditions with minimal motor demands, active exploration does not confer a substantial advantage over passive observation, and that individual differences in spatial ability are a more reliable predictor of spatial learning performance.