Using a freelook interface similar to that found in a first-person action game, observers roamed about the environment searching for a target, a yellow box. The yellow box was placed in a room that varied randomly from trial to trial. Upon finding the yellow box, observers were instructed to go as rapidly as possible back to their starting room, in which was located a red box. If observers can learn the spatial layout of the 4-D environment, then the time taken to return to the starting location should decrease as a function of trial. Indeed, we found that times to return decreased with increasing practice to an asymptotic level close to that associated with ideal performance.
Control experiments rule out the possibility that improvement is due to learning the interface.