JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Virtual reality (VR) navigation games are increasingly employed to investigate human navigational behavior and cognitive performance under controlled spatial conditions. However, there is a lack of empirical research on how spatial configurations and individual cognitive abilities influence wayfinding performance, particularly across different age groups.

Objective:

This study aims to investigate the critical associations between environmental factors (external factors) and cognitive abilities (internal factors) in shaping navigational behavior performance in wayfinding games across different age groups.

Methods:

We designed a virtual navigation game and recruited two groups, younger adults (n = 18) and older adults (n = 21), to complete identical goal-directed wayfinding tasks. Prior to the formal experiment, cognitive abilities were assessed through questionnaires, and pre-training was conducted to ensure participants were familiar with navigating within the virtual environment (VE). In this study, navigation efficiency was used as the primary spatiotemporal feature, and Spearman’s rank correlation was employed to examine its relationship with cognitive abilities. To quantify the spatial structure of the VE, we applied Space Syntax Analysis (SSA), including both Axial Map Analysis (AMA) and Visibility Graph Analysis (VGA), to investigate the associations between navigation efficiency and spatial configurations. Additionally, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare navigation behavior differences between the age groups from a spatiotemporal perspective.

Results:

Our results revealed that navigation behavior performance, particularly navigation efficiency, was significantly influenced by cognitive abilities and strongly correlated with several cognitive tests: the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (r = 0.495, p < 0.05), Part A of the Trail Making Test (r = -0.761, p < 0.01), and the Mental Rotation Test (r = 0.848, p < 0.01). Additionally, aging leaded to a significant decline in navigation efficiency (Z = -4.285, p < 0.001). Affected by the surrounding environmental factors of the axial path, navigation efficiency was closely related to connectivity (r = 0.675, p < 0.05), integration (r = 0.749, p < 0.01), and depth (r = -0.646, p < 0.05) derived from AMA. The integration experienced, based on participants' movement trajectories and VGA, showed significant age differences (Z = -2.097, p < 0.05) and was correlated with navigation efficiency (r = -0.366, p < 0.05).

Conclusions:

The spatiotemporal features of virtual navigation games are shaped by both cognitive abilities and environmental structure. There is ample evidence confirming that navigation games have great potential to serve as an effective cognitive assessment tool. Our findings also reveal that younger participants or those with better cognitive abilities tend to prioritize traversing lower-integrated areas to enhance navigation efficiency, leading to more optimal navigation strategy.