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Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a person or a vehicle from one location to another. It requires navigational awareness which includes complete spatial knowledge of an area. People generally acquire spatial knowledge of an area through direct personal experience or by viewing maps. Navigational awareness includes two types of knowledge (Satalich, 1995). First, called route knowledge, is gained by the personal exploration of an area. A navigator goes from one location to another through the known route but does not recognize alternate routes or shortcuts. A navigator having route knowledge may know the approximate distance between the locations frequently traveled (Allen and Kirasic, 1985). Second, called survey knowledge, is attained by multiple explorations of an area through multiple routes. It generates a bird's eye view of the physical map of an area in the mind of a navigator (Goldin and Thorndyke, 1982). The survey knowledge gained through the personal physical exploration of an area is called primary survey knowledge. The survey knowledge gained through maps or pictures is called secondary survey knowledge (Presson & Hazelrigg, 1984). Complete navigational awareness means that a navigator has both route and primary survey knowledge (Thorndyke and Hayes-Roth, 1982).
Gaining route knowledge does not guarantee of having survey knowledge, although this frequently happens. To achieve complete navigational awareness, a navigator has to go through the sequential and hierarchical model which includes: landmark recognition, routes or links identification, and primary survey knowledge achieved after significant physical traveling (Satalich, 1995). Landmark knowledge is the memory of salient objects, about their shapes and locations. Route knowledge is formed by the integration of landmarks with a path/route. Studying a map before entering in an area is helpful for developing secondary survey knowledge; however, signs or narrative directions help a navigator in finding the target location more than using hardcopy maps (Satalich, 1995).
People generally acquire navigational awareness through direct experience or by viewing maps. Advancements in information technology (IT) like: simulation of an environment, video, or most recently virtual environment have contributed in various ways to acquire navigational awareness (Wu et al., 2009). Fan et al. (2017) provided an overview of past and present road navigation technologies and discussed recent advancements in crowd intelligence and identified unique challenges and opportunities therein. The navigational awareness obtained through the use of IT or from virtual environments (VE) is almost similar to learning from real-world physical exploration. IT or VE sometime does not produce the same level of awareness as learning from a real-world physical exploration (Satalich, 1995). However, IT or VE helps in developing a good virtual navigation system. Bowman et al. (1997) divided virtual navigation into two parts: wayfinding and traveling. Wayfinding is finding a path from one location to another. Traveling is a virtual movement from one location to another in VE.