It is a prevailing theoretical claim that path integration is the primary means of developing global spatial representations. However, this claim is at odds with reported difficulty to develop global spatial representations of a multiscale environment using path integration. The current study tested a new hypothesis that locally similar but…

This study examined functions of self-motion and visual cues in updating people's actual headings in multiscale spaces. In an immersive virtual environment, the participants learned objects' locations inside two misaligned rectangular rooms by locomoting within and between the rooms. In each testing trial, the participants locomoted to adopt an…