Place attachment and spatial knowledge: Investigating memory of familiar paths

Place attachment is defined as the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral bond that individuals form with meaningful environments (Scannell & Gifford, 2010). Place attachment is related to identity construction and autobiographical memory (e.g., Knez, 2010). Familiarity with a place can generate place attachment, but not always; one may be familiar with a place without truly loving it (Felder, 2021). However, familiar environments typically accumulate emotional memories that have more contextual details (D’Argembeau et al., 2003). Positive emotions, in turn, strengthen emotional bonding with the place (Scannell & Gifford, 2014). Place attachment has also been associated with spatial mental representations. Higher attachment has been linked to higher landmark knowledge (e.g., Pullano et al., 2024). On the other hand, familiarity is associated with better landmark, route, and survey knowledge (Muffato & Meneghetti, 2020; Siegel & White, 1977). The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between place attachment and spatial memory for familiar routes. Participants will describe and evaluate two familiar routes: one to which they feel strong attachment and one to which they feel little or no attachment. For each route, participants will provide measures of place attachment and spatial environmental knowledge. This will be done while considering individual differences in autobiographical memory (memory sensitivity, which refers to the subjective awareness of and pleasure in autobiographical memory; Cornoldi et al., 2007), as well as age, gender, spatial abilities, and wayfinding inclinations, all of which are known to be related to knowledge of familiar environments (e.g., Muffato & Meneghetti, 2020).