Designing for memory: how pathway configuration shapes long-term navigational representations

Abstract

Spatial memories undergo systems consolidation, typically transforming from flexible, hippocampal-dependent representations of spatial relations, to rigid, extra-hippocampal route representations. This study investigated whether environmental design influences this consolidation process to enhance long-term wayfinding. We compared navigational performance in a virtual shopping centre featuring either a “Grid” configuration, which promotes flexible navigational representations, or a “Star” configuration, which encourages route-based sequence learning. In Experiment 1 (N = 66), participants were tested at 2 h and 2 weeks post-learning to assess repetition effects, while in Experiment 2 (N = 62), participants were tested only after 2 weeks to isolate time-dependent decay. Results demonstrated that the Star design supported superior retention after the two-week delay compared to the Grid design, and that repeated retrieval selectively enhanced performance in the Star design. These findings suggest that architectural design fundamentally shapes the persistence of spatial memory by influencing the mechanisms engaged during learning and retrieval, offering a blueprint for environments that maximize long-term retention.