Relative cue precision and prior knowledge contribute to the preference of proximal and distal landmarks in human orientation.

A prevailing argument posits that distal landmarks dominate over proximal landmarks as orientation cues. However, no studies have tested this argument or examined the underlying mechanisms. This project aimed to close this gap by examining the roles of relative cue precision and prior knowledge in cue preference. Participants learned object locations with proximal and distal landmarks in an immersive virtual environment. After walking a path without seeing objects or landmarks, participants disoriented themselves by spinning in place and pointed to the objects with the reappearance of a proximal landmark being rotated -50°, a distal landmark being rotated 50°, or both (Conflict). Heading errors were examined. Experiment 1 manipulated the relative cue precision. Results showed that in Conflict condition, the observed weight on the distal cue (exceeding 0.5) changed with but remained higher than the weight predicted by the relative cue precision. This indicates that besides the relative cue precision, prior knowledge of distal cue dominance also influences orientation cue usage. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants walked a path stopping at one object location. Participants were informed of it explicitly in Experiment 2 but not in Experiment 3. Results showed that distal cue dominance still occurred in Experiment 3. However, in Experiment 2, proximal cue dominance appeared, and it was not predicted by the relative cue precision. These results suggest that prior knowledge of proximal cue dominance might have been invoked by the instruction of locations. Consistent with the Bayesian inference model, human cue usage in orientation is determined by relative cue precision and prior knowledge. The choice of prior knowledge can be influenced by instructions.