Instruction of verbal and spatial strategies for the learning about large-scale spaces

This study examined the effects of instruction on verbal and spatial strategies on the learning about large-scale spaces by people with different levels of sense of direction. 103 participants learned two routes from a video, first without instruction and second with verbalization, spatial operation, or no instruction. For landmark learning, people with a good sense of direction benefited from both verbalization and spatial operation, and people with a poor sense of direction benefited from verbalization only. For survey learning, verbalization had a disruptive effect, and people with a good sense of direction did worse with instruction, either verbal or spatial. By contrast, survey learning by people with a poor sense of direction was not affected by verbalization or spatial operation, indicating their difficulty with survey learning and insensitivity to strategy instruction.