Redhead and team shed new light on how landmarks can be designed to help people navigate through a space. They report that in their study “participants learned a route through a computer-generated maze using directional arrows and wall-mounted pictures. On the test trial, the arrows were removed, and participants completed the maze using only the pictures. In the nostalgia condition, pictures were of popular music artists and TV characters from 5 to 10 years ago. In the control condition, they were recent pictures of these same artists and characters. . . . In Maze 1, we placed nostalgic/control landmarks only at non-decision points (whereas we placed them at decision points in Experiment 1). In Maze 2, we placed nostalgic/control landmarks at decision points during acquisition but removed them in the test trial (whereas they were present in the test trial in Experiment 1). In both mazes, participants in the nostalgia (compared to control) condition completed the test trial faster.”
Edward Redhead, Tim Wildschut, Alice Oliver, Matthew Parker, Antony Wood, and Constantine Sedikides. 2023. “Nostalgia Enhances Route Learning in a Virtual Environment.” Cognition and Emotion, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 617-632, https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2023.2185877