Facilitation of Learning Spatial Relations Among Locations in the Absence of Coincident Visual Cues

Participants searched in a real-environment or 3D virtual-environment for four hidden goal locations arranged in a diamond configuration within a 5 x 5 matrix. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Pattern- Only, Landmark+Pattern, Cues+Pattern. Participants experienced a Training phase followed by a Testing phase. During Training, visual cues were coincident with goal locations for the Cues+Pattern group whereas one visual cue at a non-goal location maintained a consistent spatial relationship with goal locations in the Landmark+Pattern group. Groups were tested in the absence of visual cues. Participants learned the spatial configuration of goal locations. When visual cues were removed during Testing, performance of the Landmark+Pattern and Cues+Pattern groups did not differ and was superior to the Pattern-Only group. Results suggest that learning based upon spatial relations among locations may not be susceptible to cue-competition effects and that facilitation of learning spatial relations does not require coincident visual cues.