Wayfinding Behavior Research Articles

Wayfinding and Glaucoma: A Virtual Reality Experiment.

PurposeWayfinding, the process of determining and following a route between an origin and a destination, is an integral part of everyday tasks. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of glaucomatous visual field loss on wayfinding behavior using an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 31 glaucomatous patients and 20 healthy subjects without evidence of overall cognitive impairment. Wayfinding experiments were modeled after the Morris water maze navigation task and conducted in an immersive VR environment. Two rooms were built varying only in the complexity of the visual scene in order to promote allocentric-based (room A, with multiple visual cues) versus egocentric-based (room B, with single visual cue) spatial representations of the environment. Wayfinding tasks in each room consisted of revisiting previously visible targets that subsequently became invisible.ResultsFor room A, glaucoma patients spent on average 35.0 seconds to perform the wayfinding task, whereas healthy subjects spent an average of 24.4 seconds (P = 0.001). For room B, no statistically significant difference was seen on average time to complete the task (26.2 seconds versus 23.4 seconds, respectively; P = 0.514). For room A, each 1-dB worse binocular mean sensitivity was associated with 3.4% (P = 0.001) increase in time to complete the task.ConclusionsGlaucoma patients performed significantly worse on allocentric-based wayfinding tasks conducted in a VR environment, suggesting visual field loss may affect the construction of spatial cognitive maps relevant to successful wayfinding. VR environments may represent a useful approach for assessing functional vision endpoints for clinical trials of emerging therapies in ophthalmology.

A unified pedestrian routing model for graph-based wayfinding built on cognitive principles

ABSTRACTThe wayfinding behavior of pedestrians in street and building networks can be predicted by computer simulations based on routing models. To model realistic routing behavior, it is necessary to integrate spatial- and social-cognitive aspects into the wayfinding models. However, a model that incorporates diverse influencing factors on pedestrian route planning has yet not been developed for microscopic simulations. We present a unified routing model that describes pedestrian route choices in street and building environments by integrating spatial- and social-cognitive aspects. We achieve an integration of both domains by combining different graph-based routing methods, each formalizing a cognitive theory. In addition, we present a calibration method for the spatial-cognitive aspects. For validation purposes, we use the model to simulate how the visitors of a music festival navigate to the event and how people navigate in a city district. Our methodology is highly flexible and can be extended to include other aspects of wayfinding behavior.

Parent reports of wayfinding by their children with Down syndrome

ABSTRACTBackground: Navigating the environment, or wayfinding, is integral to independent living. Laboratory studies have consistently indicated an impairment in wayfinding in people with Down syndrome (DS). However, very little is known regarding their real-life wayfinding abilities.Method: Eighty-six parents of children with DS completed an online survey on their children’s wayfinding behaviours and their own feelings and expectations about their children’s wayfinding.Results: Parents reported their children had few wayfinding skills, yet much confidence in their own abilities. Many parents had taught/planned to teach their children wayfinding skills. Parents also expressed concerns over their children’s independent wayfinding. Parents teaching wayfinding and parents’ concern predicted their assessment of their children’s wayfinding competence and knowledge. Children’s age and sex, as well as parents’ concerns predicted assessment of children’s confidence in wayfinding.Conclusions: Our results identified key factors related to wayfinding behaviours in people with DS. Parental factors are especially important in predicting their children’s wayfinding behaviour.

Oppilatio+ - A data and cognitive science based approach to analyze pedestrian flows in networks

Public transport services are a widespread and environmentally friendly option for mobility. In the majority of cases, passengers of public transport services will have to walk from a subway, train, or bus station to their desired travel destination. In an urban environment with a network of narrow streets, this can lead to crowd congestions during rush hour, due to the fact that passengers tend to arrive in waves. In order to monitor and analyze such crowding behavior, city planners, crowd managers, and organizers of public events must ascertain which routes these pedestrians will take from the respective station to their destination. The Oppilatio+ approach is suitable for solving this problem. It is an easy-to-apply approach to predict way-finding behavior with a minimal set of information. The necessary data includes the schedule of incoming transport vehicles at the stations and the time-stamped count of pedestrians at the respective destinations. Under these conditions, the Oppilatio+ approach is suitable for estimating the distribution of pedestrians on all possible walkways between stations and destinations. This information helps crowd control experts to recognize weak spots in the infrastructure and help event organizers to ensure an undisturbed arrival at their event. We validated our approach using two field experiments. The first one was a field study on a public event, and the second one was a case study for a large Swiss train station.

AN EVALUATION OF AIRPORT WAYFINDING AND SIGNAGE ON SENIOR DRIVER BEHAVIOUR AND SAFETY OF AIRPORT ROAD ACCESS DESIGN

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of different wayfinding provision on senior driving behaviour and road safety. A car driving simulator was used to model scenarios of differing wayfinding complexity and road design. Three scenario types were designed consisting of 3.8 miles of airport road. Wayfinding complexity varied due to differing levels of road-side furniture. Experienced car drivers were asked to drive simulated routes. Forty drivers in the age ranges: 50 to 54, 55 to 59 and those aged over 60 were selected to perform the study. Participants drove for approximately 20 minutes to complete the simulated driving. The driver performance was compared between age groups. Results were analysed by Mean, Standard Deviation and ANOVA Test, and discussed with reference to the use of the driving simulator. The ANOVA confirmed that age group has a correlation between road design complexity, driving behaviour and driving errors.

Map Design in Subway Stations through Passengers' Wayfinding Behavior Perspective

This empirical study of behavioural observation with a verbal report attempts to understand the process of map-reading for purposes of wayfinding in a subway station at Taipei in Taiwan. Subjects were required to find the shortest way in reaching an exit via three manners - without a map, aided by 2D, and 3D maps. The results indicated that the design of underground space maps should support a direction and floor wayfinding strategy, plus the selection of a suitable angle of vision. Important considerations include marking the nearest exit, marking the scale, intensifying wall performance, and clarifying the discrimination of different floors and areas.

Indoor Semantic Modelling for Routing: The Two-Level Routing Approach for Indoor Navigation

Indoor Semantic Modelling for Routing: The Two-Level Routing Approach for Indoor Navigation

Indoor landmark-based path-finding utilising the expanded connectivity of an endpoint partition

Landmarks are ideal wayfinding tools to guide a person from A to B as they allow fast reasoning and efficient communication. However, very few path-finding algorithms start from the availability of landmarks to generate a path. In this paper, which focuses on indoor wayfinding, a landmark-based path-finding algorithm is presented in which the endpoint partition is proposed as spatial model of the environment. In this model, the indoor environment is divided into convex sub-shapes, called e-spaces, that are stable with respect to the visual information provided by a person’s surroundings (e.g. walls, landmarks). The algorithm itself implements a breadth-first search on a graph in which mutually visible e-spaces suited for wayfinding are connected. The results of a case study, in which the calculated paths were compared with their corresponding shortest paths, show that the proposed algorithm is a valuable alternative for Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm. It is able to calculate a path with a minimal amount of actions that are linked to landmarks, while the path length increase is comparable to the increase observed when applying other path algorithms that adhere to natural wayfinding behaviour. However, the practicability of the proposed algorithm is highly dependent on the availability of landmarks and on the spatial configuration of the building.

A visual salience model for wayfinding in 3D virtual urban environments

The study develops a modeling framework to quantify the saliency of individual buildings and to visualize them accordingly in a virtual 3D urban environment for wayfinding. Based on the cognitive characteristics of wayfinding behaviors and considering the relationships among pathfinder, buildings, and local context of the urban environment, this study defines and distinguishes two types of variables related to the saliency of a building, the global salience variables and the local salience variables. Then an adaptive weight distribution method is developed to determine the weight for each variable. Global salience is estimated in the context of a broader urban space, while local salience is estimated in the local region. Finally, a synthesized salience model is constructed by integrating the global and local salience values with consideration of the visibility factor. The salience values are used to identify most salient landmarks in each scene on the path of wayfinding. In the implemented prototype, 3D visualization is made for each scene showing buildings with varying levels of details according to their salience values. This study contributes to the research on intelligent 3D navigation systems by providing effective visual guidance for wayfinding tasks in virtual urban environments.

From Isovist to Spatial Perception: Wayfinding in Historic Quarter

Based on the assumption that human behaviours are mainly affected by physical and animate environments, this empirical research takes the changeful and complex historical district in Tainan to observe wayfinding behaviours. An a priori analysis of the isovist fields is conducted to identify spatial characteristics. Three measures, the relative area, convexity, and circularity, are applied to scrutinize the possible stopping points, change of speed, and route choices. Accordingly, an experiment is carried out to observe spatial behaviours and different influences of social stimuli. Results show that social interactions afford groups and pairs to perform better than individual observers in wayfinding.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creative commons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: wayfinding; isovist; spatial perception and social stimuli; historic quarter

From Isovist to Spatial Perception: Wayfinding in Historic Quarter

Based on the assumption that human behaviours are mainly affected by physical and animate environments, this empirical research takes the changeful and complex historical district in Tainan to observe wayfinding behaviours. An a priori analysis of the isovist fields is conducted to identify spatial characteristics. Three measures, the relative area, convexity, and circularity, are applied to scrutinize the possible stopping points, change of speed, and route choices. Accordingly, an experiment is carried out to observe spatial behaviours and different influences of social stimuli. Results show that social interactions afford groups and pairs to perform better than individual observers in wayfinding.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies, Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, MalaysiaKeywords: wayfinding; isovist; spatial perception and social stimuli; historic quarter

COMPUTATIONAL DESCRIPTION OF WAYFINDING BEHAVIOR IN OUTDOOR ENVIRONMENTS OF PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA USING ONTOLOGIES AND SENSOR DATA

COMPUTATIONAL DESCRIPTION OF WAYFINDING BEHAVIOR IN OUTDOOR ENVIRONMENTS OF PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA USING ONTOLOGIES AND SENSOR DATA

The Consistency of Information based on Observations of Users’ Behavior Regarding the Wayfinding Transfer between Trains and City Buses at Hakata Station in Fukuoka City

Background A legible and user-friendly wayfinding system of public transport networks is one of the key factors for improving a city’s intangible value. Therefore, this study focuses on the wayfinding system in the transfer between city buses and trains at Hakata Station to see how the current sign system at Hakata Station could affect people’s wayfinding behavior in order to find methods for improving the system. Methods The study conducted a survey related to the sign distribution and a wayfinding protocol. The signs were classified based on the functions in the survey. The wayfinding protocol included two aspects: 1) a wayfinding experiment that recorded and observed subjects’ wayfinding behavior, and 2) an interview and a questionnaire that were conducted afterward to assess the subjects’ wayfinding behavior. Results It was discovered that the signs, including directional signs, information signs, and identification signs were not consistent based on the mount types, color codes, illumination types, and the height. Bus information at Bus Stop A was not inadequate and integrated; moreover, information such as “Hakata Bus Terminal” and “Bus Stop A-F” on directional signs confused subjects to move ahead at Hakata Gate. The subjects’ behavior patterns were consistent at the JR Kyushu part of the Station Concourse, but they were inconsistent at the Shinkansen Entrance Central Gate and the Hakata Gate. Conclusions In this study, problems were clearly identified and methods were pointed out to improve the current sign system in order to lead people to smoothly transfer from trains to city buses. Also, a proposal based on four points for stations in other cities that were similar to Hakata Station was suggested, such as the consistency of signs at each decision point and path in the wayfinding process, the integrity and adequateness of bus information at bus stops, the clarity of differences between the bus terminal and bus stops at station squares, and the concern for information priorities at the whole sign system.

Artificial Intelligence for Predictive and Evidence Based Architecture Design

The evidence-based analysis of people's navigation and wayfinding behaviour in large-scale built-up environments (e.g., hospitals, airports) encompasses the measurement and qualitative analysis of a range of aspects including people's visual perception in new and familiar surroundings, their decision-making procedures and intentions, the affordances of the environment itself, etc. In our research on large-scale evidence-based qualitative analysis of wayfinding behaviour, we construe visual perception and navigation in built-up environments as a dynamic narrative construction process of movement and exploration driven by situation-dependent goals, guided by visual aids such as signage and landmarks, and influenced by environmental (e.g., presence of other people, time of day, lighting) and personal (e.g., age, physical attributes) factors. We employ a range of sensors for measuring the embodied visuo-locomotive experience of building users: eye-tracking, egocentric gaze analysis, external camera based visual analysis to interpret fine-grained behaviour (e.g., stopping, looking around, interacting with other people), and also manual observations made by human experimenters. Observations are processed, analysed, and integrated in a holistic model of the visuo-locomotive narrative experience at the individual and group level. Our model also combines embodied visual perception analysis with analysis of the structure and layout of the environment (e.g., topology, routes, isovists) computed from available 3D models of the building. In this framework, abstract regions like the visibility space, regions of attention, eye movement clusters, are treated as first class visuo-spatial and iconic objects that can be used for interpreting the visual experience of subjects in a high-level qualitative manner. The final integrated analysis of the wayfinding experience is such that it can even be presented in a virtual reality environment thereby providing an immersive experience (e.g., using tools such as the Oculus Rift) of the qualitative analysis for single participants, as well as for a combined analysis of large group. This capability is especially important for experiments in post-occupancy analysis of building performance. Our construction of indoor wayfinding experience as a form of moving image analysis centralizes the role and influence of perceptual visuo-spatial characteristics and morphological features of the built environment into the discourse on wayfinding research. We will demonstrate the impact of this work with several case-studies, particularly focussing on a large-scale experiment conducted at the New Parkland Hospital in Dallas Texas, USA.

Understanding and describing users’ wayfinding behavior in public library facilities

Wayfinding is the study of how humans use a variety of informational media to orient themselves and navigate in a space, such as a library. This multi-method case study tested the applicability of a wayfinding framework developed in architecture to a public library environment. Research methods included unobtrusive observation of a random sample of users’ wayfinding in the facility and interviews with a convenience sample of users to discuss their wayfinding behavior. Patrons used various wayfinding behaviors in the facility, some corresponding to the framework, but other behaviors did not fit into the existing framework and not all aspects of the framework were observed or expressed. Additional research is necessary to investigate more fully the degree to which the framework validly describes how library users wayfind. Results have value for librarians, architects and interior designers, all of whom may apply findings toward their work designing facilities that are intuitive to navigate.

Early ant trajectories: spatial behaviour before behaviourism.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, when Jacques Loeb's and John Watson's mechanistic view of life started to dominate animal physiology and behavioural biology, several scientists with different academic backgrounds got engaged in studying the wayfinding behaviour of ants. Largely unaffected by the scientific spirit of the time, they worked independently of each other in different countries: in Algeria, Tunisia, Spain, Switzerland and the United States of America. In the current literature on spatial cognition these early ant researchers--Victor Cornetz, Felix Santschi, Charles Turner and Rudolf Brun--are barely mentioned. Moreover, it is virtually unknown that the great neuroanatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal had also worked on spatial orientation in ants. This general neglect is certainly due to the fact that nearly all these ant researchers were scientific loners, who did their idiosyncratic investigations outside the realm of comparative physiology, neurobiology and the behavioural sciences of the time, and published their results in French, German, and Spanish at rather inaccessible places. Even though one might argue that much of their work resulted in mainly anecdotal evidence, the conceptual approaches of these early ant researchers preempt much of the present-day discussions on spatial representation in animals.

GoPro as an ethnographic tool: A wayfinding study in an academic library

ABSTRACTIn this study, researchers sought to capture students’ authentic experience of finding books in the main library using a GoPro camera and the think-aloud protocol. The GoPro provided a first-person perspective and was an effective ethnographic tool for observing a student's individual experience, while also demonstrating what tools they use to find items. Using the think-aloud protocol, observers could hear students express their internal decisions, thoughts, and feelings about the process. Results confirmed trouble spots in the building and that directories are not typically used and need updating. GoPro footage revealed that there are certain qualities of the help-desk experience that can make a search more or less successful. No major sex differences were found in preference of wayfinding tools and behaviors, except that males appear to have used directories marginally more than females. In a debriefing survey, students still affirmed human help and online maps as the most useful wayfinding tools and advocated for better signage. Mapping of behaviors by floor also validated GoPro observations. At low cost to the library, the GoPro/think-aloud combination along with survey and mapping methodologies affirmed trouble spots in the building and provided suggestions for wayfinding improvements to library administration.

車両通行の多い街路空間での探索歩行時の注視傾向について

This article is a continuation of a study on eye fixation during a wayfinding walk of downtown Rome, which has heavy traffic. The first part reported on the state of route selection and wayfinding behavior in an unfamiliar overseas city, from a walking experiment that covers all the major tourist spots in Rome. This article will focus on “eye-fixation tendencies during the wayfinding walk.” In other words, the main purposes of this article are to 1) clarify the relationship between eye-fixation tendencies and wayfinding behavior between participants with different degrees of spatial cognition and walking routes, 2) examine the relationship between attentional tendencies and city space characteristics, 3) clarify the relationship between participant attributes and eye-fixation attributes by “object of eye fixation” and by “building façade site, ” 4) clarify the setup of “textual information” (particularly “storefront signs” and “road signs”) and eye-fixation tendencies in downtown Rome, which has heavy traffic, and 5) analyze the participants' eye movement patterns. As a result, the following points were found: 1) The frequency of eye fixation over walking distance by attribute was fewer during the initial wayfinding walk, and mean frequency of eye fixation was overwhelmingly greater during “head-turning behavior, ” and by nodes, most marked in the “square.” 2) The mean rate of eye fixation by object of eye fixation during the wayfinding walk overall was highest for the “buildings' façades, ” and extremely low for “storefront signs” and “road signs, ” which were assumed to be prominent sources of information. By attribute, the group with a higher degree of spatial cognition apprehended subjects such as “buildings' façades, ” which were the clues for the wayfinding walk. 3) Mean time of eye fixation by attribute was rather short for the group with a low degree of spatial cognition, and by object of eye fixation, longest for “road signs.” 4) While the mean eye fixation distance during the wayfinding walk overall was 16.6m, it was somewhat shorter during “head-turning behavior” and “stopping/staying, ” and by attribute, was shortest for the group with a low degree of spatial cognition. 5) Mean height of eye fixation for all sections tended to increase for longer eye fixation distances. 6) The most frequent storefront signs installed on the route of the participants' wayfinding walk were “wall-mounted signs, ” followed by “channel lettering signs” and “window lettering signs, ” and there were extremely few “protruding signs” that are frequently seen in Japan. Similarly, among the types of “road signs” installed, there were overwhelmingly many “regulatory signs, ” such as “no parking signs, ” and of the “directional signs” that are helpful in wayfinding walks, there were few “road names” and “facility/directional signs.” 7) Of the frequency of eye fixation to “traffic” by vehicle type, automobiles accounted for 70.1% of the whole, followed by motorbikes (19.3%), and by mode, “parked vehicles” stood out regardless of section. 8) In terms of eye movement patterns over the entire wayfinding walk, “fixed eye fixation” and “fluid eye fixation” stood out for all attributes.

Implementing an augmented reality-enabled wayfinding system through studying user experience and requirements in complex environments

Abstract Background Wayfinding is an exceedingly complicated cognitive process, especially in complex environments such as hospitals, shopping centers and airports. Inhabitants of such large environments can become lost very easily if they are unfamiliar with the environment. Although they may eventually be able to discover the route to a specific destination, interacting with conventional wayfinding aids, such as consulting a map, understanding signs, and asking people for directions, can be very time-consuming. Methods The research presented in this paper developed a customized instrument (questionnaire) with factors identified as influencing the cognitive process of wayfinding, and conducted an explorative study to investigate user experience and requirements of wayfinding in complex environments; in this paper, a hospital was chosen as the context. Results The results demonstrate that current wayfinding aids are insufficient to support a person's natural navigational behaviors in the environment. Augmented Reality (AR), which is an innovative concept of enabling digital information to be superimposed onto a real view in real time and context, has great potential to supplement current wayfinding aids. Therefore, we also conceived, developed and implemented an AR-based wayfinding system based on the user requirements identified by the aforementioned instrument. Conclusion The AR-based wayfinding system was partially validated through case studies, which concluded that AR significantly reduced the time and cognition workload of human wayfinding behaviors.

Wayfinding Behaviors in Complex Buildings

To contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of human wayfinding behaviors in complex buildings, we propose a framework that incorporates the impact of critical factors from both the environment and humans. The influence of the environment is summarized through the concept of environmental legibility (EL), an integration of different space syntax methods that addresses visibility, connectivity, and layout complexity of buildings. Human factors are assessed through psychometric tests, self-ratings for sense of direction, and a report of familiarity. To test this framework, we conducted behavioral experiments involving 24 novices and 28 experts. Three different processes of wayfinding—wayfinding performance, acquisition of spatial knowledge, and development of spatial awareness—were measured and evaluated. Results show that EL and individual differences impact all three processes. There is a predominant impact of EL on wayfinding performance and the development of spatial awareness. Not surprisingly, familiarity has a predominant impact on the acquisition of spatial knowledge.