An open-access neuroimaging-compatible virtual town task for assessing human spatial navigation

NAVAN enables neuroimaging-compatible virtual wayfinding in 53 participants, showing navigational efficiency improves with repeated exposure across 24 trials while EEG can be recorded and aligned to in-game events.

• Why it matters: Existing virtual navigation tasks often can’t resolve second-by-second learning and decision processes or integrate cleanly with concurrent neurophysiology.
• What they did: Participants completed a wayfinding paradigm across 24 trials while high-resolution behavioral tracking and electroencephalography were recorded, with in-game events streamed and aligned to neural data.
• The result: Efficiency increased after repeated exposure but declined across trials within each block, and Santa Barbara Sense of Direction predicted early performance, supporting concurrent validity and enabling detailed behavioral-EEG reuse.

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