Abstract
Visibility is the degree to which different parts of the environment can be observed from a given vantage point. In the absence of previous familiarity or signage, the visibility of key elements in a multilevel environment (e.g., the entrance, exit, or the destination itself) becomes a primary input to make wayfinding decisions and avoid getting lost. Previous research has focused on memory-based wayfinding and mental representation of 3D space, but few studies have investigated the direct effects of visibility on wayfinding. Moreover, to our knowledge, there are no studies that have explicitly observed the interaction between visibility and wayfinding under uncertainty in a multilevel environment. To bridge this gap, we studied how the visibility of destinations, as well as the continuity of sight-lines along the vertical dimension, affects unaided and goal-directed wayfinding behavior in a multilevel desktop Virtual Reality (VR) study. We obtained results from a total of 69 participants. Each participant performed a total of 24 wayfinding trials in a multilevel environment. Results showcase a significant and nonlinear correlation between the visibility of destinations and wayfinding behavioral characteristics. Specifically, once the destination was in sight, regardless of whether it was highly or barely visible, participants made an instantaneous decision to switch floors and move up towards the destination. In contrast, if the destination was out-of-sight, participants performed ‘visual exploration’, indicated by an increase in vertical head movements and greater time taken to switch floors. To demonstrate the direct applicability of this fundamental wayfinding behavioral pattern, we formalize these results by modeling a visibility-based cognitive agent. Our results show that by modeling the transition between exploration and exploitation as a function of visibility, cognitive agents were able to replicate human wayfinding patterns observed in the desktop VR study. This simple demonstration shows the potential of extending our main findings concerning the nonlinear relationship between visibility and wayfinding to inform the modeling of human cognition.
Highlights
Visibility is the degree to which different parts of the environment can be observed from a given vantage point
Visibility becomes a primary consideration for the n avigator[8,9,10,11,12]
To formally demonstrate how these findings may be used to model wayfinding behavior, we present a second study on the development of a visibility-based cognitive agent
Summary
Visibility is the degree to which different parts of the environment can be observed from a given vantage point. Individuals do not have any previous information about the navigated environment beyond the perception of their immediate surroundings and are unable to use an internal representation to support wayfinding These individuals may still have to make wayfinding decisions based on this limited information in order to find their way. Research conducted in multilevel buildings present supporting evidence of this hypothesis[12,17,18,19,20,21] This extensive body of research provides important insights into mental representations of 3D spaces, far fewer studies have investigated how visibility of 3D space directly affects wayfinding behavior and performance
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