Abstract
This thesis reports a series of three experiments undertaken to investigate whether the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and imagery toolsets improved or accelerated learning about new environments in military personnel. The first experiment took place within a large rural environment over six days, and the second took place in an urban environment in a single session lasting three hours. Each of these experiments compared the use of GIS and imagery with the use of maps only. All participants were able to have direct navigational experience of the environment. The final experiment aimed to investigate the effect of specialisation on the components extracted from real scenes. The results showed that there was evidence of learning exhibited in both environments, and the use of GIS and imagery did provide an increase in the number of landmarks identified, and the number identified on sketch maps produced by the participants. However, there was little improvement in the accuracy of landmark location from GIS and imagery learning over learning with maps. In general there was a high degree of individual variability in performance for the spatial tests, and it is concluded that this variability masked effects of the experimental conditions. Those participants with specialist technical or geographic experience were able to identify more components and more details from the images presented than participants from other backgrounds. It was concluded that the use of GIS and imagery provide useful additional information to that provided by mapping, and appeared to increase user confidence.