Lost again on the way? : Measuring Human Map-Reading Ability

Abstract

Recently, various navigation systems have found a place in many aspects of our daily life. However, it is difficult for people to effectively use such a system because the ability to understand the maps generated by and the guidance given by the system differs from person to person. We think that the fact that the system gives the same guidance to everyone is a problem for some people. Therefore, it is necessary for us to investigate a person’s ability to understand maps and the related guidance, that is, the human map-reading ability. Moreover, we consider that it is important that a navigation system analyzes the map-reading ability of its user and highlights the user’s weaknesses in this aspect. In this paper, we have developed a system to simulate the way people find a particular place in real space. First, we performed outdoor experiments for studying how pedestrians find their way to a certain place by using the proposed system. Next, we proposed three major indicators of pedestrian behavior and finally measured the human map-reading ability using the proposed system. Consequently, we think that our approach will open up a new vista for personal guidance services.