The effects of spatial anxiety on memory for spatio-temporal scale.

Previous literature has shown that spatial anxiety relates to navigation abilities (Hund & Gill, 2014). How spatial anxiety effects the spatial-temporal perception of one’s environment is not well known. The present student aimed to examine how spatial anxiety related to the memory of distances and time to landmarks in the surrounding area. Participants completed a battery of navigation questionnaires and reported how far (both in distance and time) different known landmarks in the surrounding area were. Data show a trend suggesting that females overestimated distances whereas males were more accurate in estimates to the five furthest landmarks. Spatial anxiety did not predict distance estimates; however, mobility within the surrounding area was marginally predictive of distance estimates for females. These findings suggest that spatial anxiety does not predict the remembered distances and time estimates to landmarks, but that mobility may be a more important predictive factor in remembered distances to landmarks.