The Influence of Feedback on Cue Integration in Human Spatial Navigation

Spatial navigation involves integrating multiple spatial cues, yet the role of feedback in this process remains poorly understood. We examined how corrective feedback affects spatial navigation using landmarks and self-motion cues. Participants performed a spatial localization task under four conditions: landmark-only, self-motion-only, combination (both cues available), and conflict (cues incongruent). Behaviorally, feedback in single-cue conditions reduced response bias and decreased the weight assigned to landmarks, without affecting response variability. Feedback in the combination condition reduced response bias in that condition but induced no other changes. Cognitive modeling revealed that feedback in single-cue conditions reduced sensory biases, which, however, did not translate to greater cue integration. This feedback also reduced the weight assigned to landmarks in different-cause judgments, aligning cue weighting with the maximum-likelihood-estimation principle. This adjustment was accompanied by altered subjective evaluation of cue reliability. Collectively, our findings suggest that rather than enhancing sensory precision or cue integration, corrective feedback shapes spatial cue integration through recalibration mechanisms at multiple levels: aligning perceived spatial location with the true target to reduce sensory bias and adjusting the perception of cue reliability to optimize cue weighting. These findings have broader implications for understanding feedback-driven changes in perceptual and cognitive processes.