The Influence of Visual Cues and Human Spatial Ability on Intra-vehicular Orientation Performance

Astronauts often experience disorientation when floating inside their spacecraft due to the lack of gravity. Previous research showed that the intra-vehicular orientation performance correlated with human spatial ability, but paid less attention to the visual cues in the environment. In this study, an experiment was conducted to explore the role of visual cues on spatial orientation performance inside a virtual space station module. Results implicated that visual cues might help in three-dimensional space orientation, but its effect varied between different spatial ability groups. People with low spatial ability might depend more on visual cues for orientation whereas people with high spatial ability could be independent of visual cues in spatial orientation. This finding reveals the effect of visual cues for orientation inside the spacecraft and provides useful guide for prefight orientation training.