With the increasing complexity of modern buildings, it is becoming more challenging for the professionals in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry to effectively digest complex engineering and design information and develop an accurate spatial memory that is critical to their daily tasks. As emerging visualization technologies, such as Virtual Reality, are considered as a promising solution, there is a pressing need to understand the mechanism by which different information visualization methods affect AEC task performance. Cognition literature has discovered a strong relationship between attention and memory development, but little has been done to understand how the visual attention patterns during the design documents review affect the effectiveness of spatial memory in AEC tasks. To fill the knowledge gap, this paper presents a human-subject experiment (n = 63) to test how spatial knowledge is acquired in a building inspection task and how the different visual attention patterns affect the development of spatial memory. Participants were asked to review the design information of a real building on campus. To trigger different attention patterns, they were randomly assigned to one of the three groups based on the forms of information given in the review session, including 2D, 3D, and VR groups. After a brief review session, participants were asked to go to the real building to identify discrepancies (based on memory) that were intentionally inserted by the authors. The inspection performance was used to evaluate the spatial memory development. The results indicate that in general there is a positive relationship between test subjects’ visual attention (fixation time) and spatial memory, but the increasing rate varies across the three groups, suggesting that visual context plays a critical role in the development efficiency of spatial memory. The findings also indicate that the visual attention – spatial memory relationship may be mediated by the use of different spatial knowledge acquisition strategies. This study is expected to contribute to the construction information technology literature by setting the cornerstone of a cognition-driven information system that tailors into the spatial cognitive process of AEC professionals.

随着现代建筑复杂性的提高，对于建筑，工程和建筑（AEC）行业的专业人员来说，有效地消化复杂的工程和设计信息并开发对其日常任务至关重要的准确空间记忆正变得越来越具有挑战性。由于新兴的可视化技术（例如虚拟现实）被认为是有前途的解决方案，因此迫切需要了解各种信息可视化方法影响AEC任务性能的机制。认知文献已经发现注意力与记忆力发展之间存在很强的关系，但是对于了解设计文档审查过程中的视觉注意力模式如何影响AEC任务中空间记忆的有效性所做的工作很少。为了填补知识空白，本文提出了一项人类受试者实验（n = 63），以测试如何在建筑物检查任务中获取空间知识以及不同的视觉注意模式如何影响空间记忆的发展。要求参与者检查校园中一栋真实建筑物的设计信息。为了触发不同的注意力模式，他们将根据审阅会话中提供的信息形式将他们随机分配到三个组之一，包括2D，3D和VR组。在简短的回顾会议之后，要求参与者进入真实的建筑物，以识别作者故意插入的差异（基于记忆）。检查性能用于评估空间记忆的发展。结果表明，总体而言，测试对象的视觉注意力（注视时间）与空间记忆之间存在正相关关系，但在三组中，其增长速度各不相同，这表明视觉环境在空间记忆发展效率中起着至关重要的作用。 。研究结果还表明，视觉注意力与空间记忆的关系可以通过使用不同的空间知识获取策略来调节。这项研究有望通过为AEC专业人士的空间认知过程量身定制认知驱动信息系统的基石，为建筑信息技术文献做出贡献。这表明视觉环境在空间记忆的开发效率中起着至关重要的作用。研究结果还表明，视觉注意力与空间记忆的关系可以通过使用不同的空间知识获取策略来调节。这项研究有望通过为AEC专业人士的空间认知过程量身定制认知驱动信息系统的基石，为建筑信息技术文献做出贡献。这表明视觉环境在空间记忆的开发效率中起着至关重要的作用。研究结果还表明，视觉注意力与空间记忆的关系可以通过使用不同的空间知识获取策略来调节。这项研究有望通过为AEC专业人士的空间认知过程量身定制认知驱动信息系统的基石，为建筑信息技术文献做出贡献。