1 Abstract—Navigational ability requires spatial representation, planning, and memory. It covers three interdependent domains, i.e. cognitive and perceptual factors, neural information processing, and variability in brain microstructure. Many attempts have been made to see the role of spatial representation in the navigational ability, and the individual differences have been identified in the neural substrate. But, there is also a need to address the influence of planning, memory on navigational ability. The present study aims to evaluate relations of aforementioned factors in the navigational ability. Total 30 participants volunteered in the study of a virtual shopping complex and subsequently were classified into good and bad navigators based on their performances. The result showed that planning ability was the most correlated factor for the navigational ability and also the discriminating factor between the good and bad navigators. There was also found the correlations between spatial memory recall and navigational ability. However, non-verbal episodic memory and spatial memory recall were also found to be correlated with the learning variable. This study attempts to identify differences between people with more and less navigational ability on the basis of planning and memory. Keywords—Memory, planning navigational ability, virtual reality. I. INTRODUCTION PATIAL navigation is the fundamental behaviour that is shared by each living being of the earth. It is required by living beings from basic needs like survival to a high complex representation of environment like wayfinding. Navigation and memory are so entangled that if one navigates in a familiar territory, then his/her effort to travel become less challenging. One might not able to remember the path travelled by oneself for familiar region because all of his/her motor movements synchronise with the brain autonomously (unconsciously). In the other words, one has developed cognitive map for that location by repetitive movements. Spatial knowledge acquisition is supported by the stage/sequential model in which representation of environment is gained through stages, i.e. (i) landmarks knowledge, (ii) route knowledge, and (iii) survey knowledge which helps in making cognitive map for a particular territory [1] Besides these, it also differs in strategies that can either be landmark- Greeshma Sharma is with the Bio Medical Engineering Department, Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), DRDO, Delhi- 110054, India (e-mail: greeshmacct@gmail.com). Sushil Chandra is with the Bio Medical Engineering Department, Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), DRDO, Delhi-110054, India. Vijander Singh and Alok Prakash Mittal are with the Instrumentation and Control Engineering Department, Netaji Subash Institute of Technology (NSIT), Delhi-110078, India. based or direction-based. Path integration is one of the defined strategies which depend on velocity and directions of navigator [2]. Complex representation encompasses both metric like information and path integration for successful way findings. Spatial navigation hence involves activation of multiple brain regions and mechanisms. For example, grid cells and head directional cells located in the entorhinal cortex (MEC) fire when there is a change in velocity and direction integrated over time to allow a constant representation of space [3]. Unlike to grid cells, place cells located in the dorsal hippocampus strongly fire for landmarks only [4]. It indicates that multiple but distinct brain regions are involved in both kinds of strategies, i.e. landmark and path integration. Although a lot of studies were conducted on monkeys and rats [5], [6], recent imaging techniques showed importance of virtual reality in studying navigation for human beings [7]-[9]. One of these studies [9] showed how the brain deals with the changing demands on spatial processing related purely to landmarks. Results indicated that humans were able to flexibly encode location information based on expected spatial cues during retrieval. Result gave cues to associate memory with the locations (landmarks) that can be defined as one of the strategies in the navigation and hence showed that there are some shared brain regions for memory and navigation. In one such study, Buzsaki and Moser [10] pointed out that memory and planning have evolved from mechanisms of navigation, and underlying cortical areas would be in the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus. Extending further, animal studies showed that any lesions in hippocampus, MEC, and Posterior parietal cortex (PPC) can impair navigation [11]. The overall evidence thus implies an essential role for planning and memory in navigation as confirmed by various neuroscience studies. But, none of them so far, have explored the influence of planning and memory on navigational ability. The objective of the study is to identify influence of planning and memory on navigation through designed experiment in virtual environment. Virtual environment has the ability to replicate real life situation in a controlled lab settings and therefore provides an opportunity to control variables. II.METHODOLOGY A. Participants and Procedures 30 male participants volunteered in this study (mean age 20). Participants had no history of brain trauma, cardiovascular disorder, recent psychoactive substance abuse, and impaired cognitive functioning. All of them were recruited from Netaji Subash Institute of Technology (NSIT). They gave signed consent form prior to the study. The Role of Planning and Memory in the Navigational Ability Greeshma Sharma, Sushil Chandra, Vijander Singh, Alok Prakash Mittal S World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Cognitive and Language Sciences Vol:10, No:12, 2016 3872 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 10(12) 2016 scholar.waset.org/1307-6892/10005905 International Science Index, Cognitive and Language Sciences Vol:10, No:12, 2016 waset.org/Publication/10005905