Exploring Effects of Boundaries on Path Integration—An Approach to Link Spatial Navigation Performance to Brain Activity Concepts

Digital maps increasingly replace paper maps because they are accessible, regularly updated, and customizable. Yet they often weaken spatial orientation skills and create technological dependency. One possible solution is supporting navigation without extra cognitive effort by designing maps that address spatially responsive brain cells. These cells are thought to be involved in the construction of an internal spatial representation. As animal studies have shown that the perception of environmental boundaries contributes to the stabilization of firing behavior, we examined boundary effects on path integration (PI) in screen-based and virtual reality (VR) settings. This allowed us to test whether the effect is robust across formats with different immersion and self-motion feedback. Participants completed PI tasks in a virtual arena while viewing a briefly displayed elevated line, wall, or no artificial boundary. It was expected that perceived boundaries would stabilize the activity of spatially responsive cells, such as grid cells. This is likely to contribute to a reduction in PI errors. Results showed a supportive tendency for the line condition, whereas the wall condition produced the highest errors. This pattern was comparable across both media. The findings suggest that the effect of spatial boundary cues depends on their design and perceptual properties.