Digital navigation systems facilitate goal-directed travel but reduce active engagement with the surrounding environment—a process critical for the formation of allocentric cognitive maps. Neuroscientific evidence reveals that spatial orientation relies on the coordinated activity of specialized spatially tuned neuronal populations, including place cells, head direction cells, grid cells, and border cells. This article introdu...

The use of extended reality (XR) hardware for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications provides new opportunities for innovative spatial research. It enables ways for immersive (re-)presentation of and interaction with spatial environments that are not possible with monitor-based studies. Simultaneously, using XR hardware can either extend opportunities of studies in physical material environments with virt...

This article examines the potential of immersive virtual reality (VR) technologies for geography lessons in schools in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The study assumes that VR can function not merely as a visualization tool but also as a didactically grounded medium that fosters spatial reasoning, critical reflection, and decision-making competence. As part of a smart city project, a collaboration between the Ministry of School...

This study introduces PictoAI, a custom AI tool developed by the cartographic research team at Ruhr University Bochum for the generation of cartographic pictograms. This study also evaluates its effectiveness compared to traditional pictograms used by OpenStreetMap (OSM). In thematic cartography, the clarity and interpretability of pictograms are crucial for effective communication, yet user interpretation can differ from expe...

When using navigation devices the "cognitive map" created in the user's mind is much more fragmented, incomplete and inaccurate, compared to the mental model of space created when reading a conventional printed map. As users become more dependent on digital devices that reduce orientation skills, there is an urgent need to develop more efficient navigation systems that promote orientation skills. This paper proposes to conside...

Obtaining unbiased spatial information is a prerequisite for accurate spatial orientation, navigation, and spatial memory. Common sources for obtaining such spatial information are 2D maps and 3D visualizations of space. However, the exact way external spatial representations are integrated into a cognitive map is still not fully understood. Currently, there is much research on the cells forming the spatial map in the hippocam...

In recent years, fundamental changes regarding geospatial data resources have become apparent. The establishment of gaming software and associated web-based exchange and communication platforms offer cartography and geoinformation sciences new potentials of geospatial data, which requires a rethinking, especially in the field of 3D visualization. The resources of official geospatial data holding agencies and first VGI communit...

The successful communication of spatial information with maps allows correct spatial memory retrieval. Space-referencing map elements like grid pattern lead to a higher spatial accuracy in memory performance. We studied the influence of the landmark attraction effect and the central tendency bias predicted by the categorical adjustment model. While landmark attraction effect would lead to an attraction toward the landmark for...

Stakeholder participation is an important component of modern urban planning processes. It can provide information about potential social conflicts related to specific urban planning scenarios. However, acquiring feedback from stakeholders is usually limited to explicit response types such as interviews or questionnaires. Such explicit response types are not suitable for the assessment of unconscious responses to specific para...

Map information, especially volunteered geographic information (VGI) is prone to spatial inaccuracies. Due to their use as spatial reference points, spatially inaccurate landmark representations in maps might affect the ability to match maps to the represented 3D space and might compromise self-localization and orientation. Based on a map matching task in a virtual 3D environment and various degrees of spatial landmark inaccur...

Augmented reality (AR) is playing an increasingly important role in a variety of everyday application scenarios. Users are not completely disconnected from the current sensory influences of reality. They are merely confronted with additional virtual objects that are projected into reality. This allows users to obtain additional spatial information, which makes this technology interesting for cartographic applications (e.g. nav...

Modern game engines like Unity allow users to create realistic 3D environments containing terrains as well as natural and artificial objects easily and swiftly. In addition, recent advances of game engine capabilities enable effortless implementation of virtual reality (VR) compatibility. 3D environments created with VR compatibility can be experienced from an egocentric and stereoscopic perspective that surpasses the immersio...

Recent advances in augmented reality (AR) technology enable the projection of holograms to a fixed location in 3D space. This renders new possibilities for influencing peoples’ spatial perception and to address cognitive limitations as structural distortions in cognitive representations of space. The study presented in this paper investigated whether these structural distortions can be reduced by projecting a holographic grid...

Modern hardware and software innovations in the field of virtual reality (VR), such as VR headsets and accessible game engines, allow cartographers to create 3D environments which can be experienced from the ego perspective in real time and with a simulated illusion of physical presence (immersion) in the virtual representation. The new immersive experience of these virtual environments requires new ideas on how to present and...