Evidence for flexible navigation strategies during spatial learning involving path choices

In a classic study in 1946, Tolman et al. found that rodents chose the optimal path to a hidden goal location when given the option to take a shortcut. Subsequent studies, though, found mixed results, including a previous study in humans showing non-optimal response strategies. Here, we tested human participants in a virtual sunburst maze identical to that employed by Tolman. Across three different experiments, we found that participants consistently employed non-optimal response strategies involving either following the encoded route or using the light as a beacon cue. Adding distal boundary cues (Experiment 2) or enhancing idiothetic cues (Experiment 3) led to the same overall results. Our findings suggest participants’ search strategies are often suboptimal when given the opportunity to spontaneously take a short cut.

1946年的一项经典研究中，托尔曼（Tolman）等人发现，啮齿类动物在拥有捷径可选时，会选择通往隐藏目标位置的最优路径。不过后续的相关研究却得到了混杂的结果，其中一项针对人类的前期研究便显示出被试会采用非最优的反应策略。本研究中，我们采用与托尔曼等人所使用完全一致的虚拟星爆迷宫（sunburst maze）对人类被试开展了测试。在三项不同的实验中，我们发现被试始终采用了两类非最优反应策略：要么遵循预先编码的行进路线，要么将光源作为地标线索（beacon cue）。在实验2中添加远端边界线索（distal boundary cues），或是在实验3中增强本体运动线索（idiothetic cues）后，整体实验结果并未出现显著变化。我们的研究结果表明，当被试拥有自发选择捷径的机会时，其搜索策略往往并非最优。