Chapter Two reviews the literature pertinent to these areas and the metrics used in these studies. Chapters Three and Four will describe a research study conducted in virtual reality and further issues that must be addressed. Definition of Navigation Terms Navigational Awareness Navigational Awareness is defined as having complete navigational knowledge of an environment. There are two distinct types of navigational knowledge of an environment and each type affords different behaviors. The first type of navigational knowledge is called procedural knowledge or route knowledge.
Procedural knowledge is ego-referenced and is usually gained by personal exploration of a new area.
The characteristics of procedural knowledge are that the navigator can successfully go from one landmark to another on a known route, but does not recognize alternate routes, such as short-cuts. A person who has procedural knowledge may know the approximate distance between the landmarks along the route they traveled. Survey knowledge, the second type of navigational knowledge, is attained by multiple explorations of an environment using multiple routes. Survey knowledge is characterized by the ability to take an exocentric viewpoint and is therefore world referenced. The mental representation of an area is seen from a bird's eye point of view.