Distance and Direction Judgment in a Large-Scale Natural Environment

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Abstract
This experiment was designed to demonstrate the effect of uphill and downhill walking on children's and adults' distance judgment and the effect of a winding trail on their direction judgment in a large-scale natural environment. First, it was shown that a traversed distance was overestimated not only in uphill walking but also in downhill walking. This overestimation was observed for both children and adults. Second, when a trail was winding and there was no landmark on the way, direction judgment was systematically biased toward the direction of the vanishing point of the trail viewed from the judging point. When there was a landmark on the way, this bias disappeared for adults but remained for children.