Wayfinding Performance Research Articles

Evaluating Age-Related Differences in Wayfinding in a Real-World Indoor Setting

Wayfinding is an important skill that is used in many essential daily activities. While some studies have found older adults to have reduced visuospatial functioning and wayfinding performance, the majority of this research has been conducted in laboratory settings and may suffer from threats to external validity. In the current article, we report an empirical study in which 33 participants, grouped into younger adults versus older adults, were asked to find multiple destinations within a complex real-world building. Multiple outcome measures were collected, including wayfinding performance, spatial learning, self-reported uncertainty, and information-seeking behavior. The results indicated that the older adult participants spent longer amounts of time and traveled longer distances to reach the destinations compared to younger adults, with medium-large effect sizes. Older adults also tended to check signs more frequently and to spend more time examining them, with large to very large effect sizes. Spatial learning outcomes and self-reported uncertainty levels in older and younger groups were not significantly different. We discuss recommendations for future studies in this area regarding experimental design, measurement, and interpretation.

A large language model-based agent for wayfinding: simulation of spatial perception and memory

ABSTRACT Using agents to simulate human wayfinding processes helps to understand human decision-making and spatial cognition. The performance of large language models (LLMs) in agent-based wayfinding is still unclear. To address this, this study harnessed the thinking and reasoning capabilities of LLMs by designing an agent wayfinding framework based on cellular automata. This framework provides environmental descriptions in text form to the LLMs, enabling them to perceive the wayfinding environment and navigate within it. We simulated different spatial memory conditions for the LLM, including three types of spatial memories and one condition with no spatial memory, to observe its wayfinding behavior in a real-world setting. Multiple experiments were designed to compare the wayfinding performance of the LLM under different spatial memories, and 32 human participants conducted the same wayfinding experiments for reference. The results indicate that the LLM autonomously explores the environment and displays spatial reasoning abilities similar to humans. Furthermore, the LLM can develop reasonable wayfinding strategies to complete the tasks. This framework allows agents with different spatial memories to accurately reach their destinations. This research provides new ideas for utilizing large language models to construct more intelligent, efficient, and flexible wayfinding agents, which can help advance the application of agent technology in fields such as navigation and robotics.

Human behavior and decision-making in earthquake emergencies: insights from virtual reality and serious games

Earthquakes can severely impact public spaces with complex layouts and high crowd densities, resulting in devastating consequences and deaths. Gaining insights into the actions of individuals during an earthquake can provide valuable information about areas where their decision-making may be flawed. Addressing these areas can improve safety measures and better protect people during emergencies. Moreover, acquiring this knowledge can enhance evacuation strategies for future earthquakes. Immersive Virtual Reality and Serious Games (IVR SGs) present an effective method for examining and understanding how people behave in emergency scenarios, such as earthquakes. Using IVR SGs, we created several potential scenarios during an earthquake in a shopping mall to explore how people act in an emergency when the evacuees feel pressure, urgency, and stress. A total of 146 participants were involved in the study. We investigated the human tendency to follow authority figures’ instructions (rational and irrational), help injured people of different genders and ages, and social influence during an emergency. Moreover, we investigated how familiarity with the environment impacts human wayfinding performance when evacuating the building.

How to Help Older Adults Navigate Through VR? Effects in Outdoor–Indoor Transition Environments

In more complex outdoor–indoor transition scenarios, people were more prone to getting lost due to difficulties in effectively integrating proprioceptive cues and external navigation cues. Previous research had mostly focused on spatial perception driven by head or limb movements, with less discussion on locomotion methods that involved significant visual discrepancies. The challenge in designing navigation systems lies in balancing the enhancement of wayfinding performance with the potential negative impact on spatial cognition. We believe that navigation legibility might be a key optimization approach. Additionally, the differences in performance between different age groups were also worth investigating. Therefore, this study aimed to explore how locomotion methods and navigation legibility affected wayfinding performance, navigation interaction, navigation regression, and spatial cognition in younger and older adults during outdoor–indoor transition scenarios. Twenty-four younger (aged 19–27) and 24 older adults (aged 60–83) underwent VR wayfinding tasks. Participants initially followed virtual phone navigation from outdoor starting points to indoor endpoints, then drew cognitive route maps. Five main findings emerged: Continuous teleportation positively affected navigation performance and global representation of routes. Improving navigation legibility boosted navigation interaction, navigation regression, and global representation of routes. Older adults engaged more in navigation interaction but less in navigation regression, exhibiting poorer performance and route representation. Location-specific differences were observed in locomotion, legibility, and age effects. Furthermore, most older adults and over half of younger adults displayed a deflection effect based on outdoor–indoor (OI) space in route representation. These findings indicated that continuous teleportation and enhanced navigation legibility could improve user experience and spatial cognition, highlighting the importance of considering user age and the characteristics of outdoor–indoor transition scenarios when optimizing navigation methods.

Utilizing Agent-Based Modeling for Optimization of Wayfinding in Hospital: A Case Study.

This research aims to propose a novel methodology for analyzing and optimizing wayfinding in complex environments by examining their spatial configurations. Wayfinding difficulties often lead to disorientation and hinder users' ability to locate destinations. Although architectural design can aid in simplifying user access, existing approaches lack a specific focus on wayfinding optimization despite its significant impact on users' navigational abilities. In this study, an agent-based model was employed to assess the efficacy of wayfinding in a multistory hospital. Subsequently, the layouts were optimized, leading to the creation of a new space distribution diagram. The simulation was then repeated to examine the potential improvement in wayfinding. Data collection encompassed user types, workflow scenarios, population distribution, and user speed. Comparative analysis of the agent-based simulation findings before and after layout optimization revealed a decrease in total distance and time spent on the modified floor plans for all users when compared to the existing layout. This suggests that the optimized layout holds significant potential for enhancing wayfinding performance. Given the positive outcomes observed for users, this approach is particularly well suited for preliminary design stages of complex environments, where designations among user groups are less crucial or flexibility is desired. Additional advantages include the ability to generate a comprehensive simulation of users' daily workflow, which is integrated into the optimization process and considers specific requirements regarding spatial adjacency.

Video gaming, but not reliance on GPS, is associated with spatial navigation performance

Recent evidence suggests that greater reliance on GPS-assisted devices is associated with poorer navigation ability. Studies have also shown that video gaming may be associated with navigation ability. We investigated the effect of video game experience and reliance on GPS on navigation ability using the mobile app Sea Hero Quest, which has been shown to predict real-world wayfinding performance. We tested a group of US-based participants' wayfinding performance (n = 822, 367 men, 455 women, mean age = 26.3 years, range = 18–52 years) and asked them a series of questions relating to reliance on GPS and video game experience. A multiple linear regression model found no significant association between reliance on GPS and wayfinding performance. There was a significant association between weekly hours of video gaming and wayfinding performance. These findings provide a platform for future intervention-based research studies investigating whether daily activities may causally enhance or disrupt specific cognitive abilities.

Generating trajectory data without behavior modeling: An online virtual reality method in wayfinding performance evaluation for buildings

Wayfinding performance is one of the key issues in pre- or post-occupancy evaluation for large-scale public buildings and such evaluation typically revolves around participants’ wayfinding trajectories. Traditional evaluation methods, including laboratory virtual reality (VR) experiments and computer simulations, have their respective advantages in accuracy or cost-efficiency. However, they either suffer from high costs and low efficiency or sacrifice the diversity of behavioral data for higher efficiency and lower costs. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel method named “sampling as simulation” (SaS) via an online VR wayfinding experiment. This method allows for the rapid collection of behavioral data at a lower cost to generate highly accurate wayfinding trajectory data for evaluation purposes. It utilizes a model-image integrated approach to create realistic online virtual environments and employs a spatiotemporal replay algorithm to generate a crowd of true-trajectory-driven avatars, significantly enhancing the immersion and realism of the online virtual scenes. This method was demonstrated and validated with a wayfinding performance post-occupancy evaluation (POE) project at the International Departure of Satellite Terminal One (S1) in Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG). In this example, a total of 13,712 original trajectories were collected within a 72-h time window, serving as the original dataset for evaluation. Based on this dataset, the study effectively simulated wayfinding behavior in three different scenarios and evaluated wayfinding performance. Compared to existing methods, the SaS method not only improves data collection efficiency and reduces costs but also maintains the diversity of behavior by generating transformed trajectories directly from human data without behavior modeling.

The elderly wayfinding performance in an informative healthcare design indoors

This study examines the influence of architectural design elements and age on the wayfinding performance (WP) of older adults in healthcare circulation patterns. The study was conducted at Milad Hospital in Tehran, Iran, and included the Emergency, Outpatient, Clinics, and Inpatient wards. The study used a quantitative research method to investigate and virtual reality (VR) to simulate. Wayfinders were shown the circulation patterns of five types of healthcare circulations in virtual reality (VR) using two design approaches: high indicative features (the most guiding design aids) and a neutral environment (the fewest design aids). The study revealed that architectural design elements and age influence users' WP. Initially, it is worth noting that the mental-perceptual conditions of users in both groups were almost indistinguishable. However, the records of the elderly group (from 66 to 82 years) indicated a lower frequency of environmental design aid scenes (base design), which enabled them to more effectively identify and focus on locating the destination points. Nevertheless, the control group, consisting of younger individuals (from 18 to 39 years), exhibited superior and more efficient performance than their senior counterparts. When the users of both groups perceived the route to be challenging to traverse, their performance dropped, and they felt disoriented and anxious. Also, the Corridor circulation pattern exhibited a relatively low level of navigational complexity. Overall, the results suggest that architects should prioritize the design of circulation routes that are easily recognizable and highlight prominent features while considering the cognitive and perceptual needs of the elderly population.

Shorter self-reported sleep duration is associated with worse virtual spatial navigation performance in men.

Sleep has been shown to impact navigation ability. However, it remains unclear how different sleep-related variables may be independently associated with spatial navigation performance, and as to whether gender may play a role in these associations. We used a mobile video game app, Sea Hero Quest (SHQ), to measure wayfinding ability in US-based participants. Wayfinding performance on SHQ has been shown to correlate with real-world wayfinding. Participants were asked to report their sleep duration, quality, daytime sleepiness and nap frequency and duration on a typical night (n = 766, 335 men, 431 women, mean age = 26.5years, range = 18-59years). A multiple linear regression was used to identify which self-reported sleep variables were independently associated with wayfinding performance. Shorter self-reported sleep durations were significantly associated with worse wayfinding performance in men only. Other self-reported sleep variables showed non-significant trends of association with wayfinding performance. When removing non-typical sleepers (< 6 or > 9h of sleep on a typical night), the significant association between sleep duration and spatial navigation performance in men was no longer present. These findings from U.S.-based participants suggest that a longer self-reported sleep duration may be an important contributor to successful navigation ability in men.

Spatial learning using Google Streetview in an online wayfinding task

The use of navigation applications changed the way people find their way in an unfamiliar environment. A combination of maps, images and textual route instructions shown (or with audio) on one screen guides the user to the destination but may sometimes be overwhelming. This article investigated the spatial knowledge participants acquired after being presented with different types of route instructions, human and computer-generated, in an online wayfinding task using Google Streetview (without the 2D map) of an unfamiliar environment. The results showed a significant difference in the wayfinding performance for deviations from computer-generated instructions, whilst there was no difference in the time spent and the scene recall. Sketch maps revealed both route-like and survey-like characteristics. But most sketch maps are characterised by high route-likeness. Furthermore, this study showed a significant effect of the environmental layout on the participant’s performance based on deviations incurred during wayfinding. The results of this study have implications for improving navigation system instructions and design as well as for learning with geospatial technologies.

The effect of negative emotion processing on spatial navigation: an experimental study using virtual reality.

Finding one's way in unfamiliar environments is an essential ability. When navigating, people are overwhelmed with an enormous amount of information. However, some information might be more relevant than others. Despite the mounting knowledge about the mechanisms underlying orientational skills, and the notable effects of facial emotions on human behavior, little is known about emotions' effects on spatial navigation. Hereby, this study aimed to explore how exposure to others' negative emotional facial expressions affects wayfinding performances. Moreover, gender differences that characterize both processes were considered. Fifty-five participants (31 females) entered twice in three realistic virtual reality environments: the first time, to encode a route to find an object and then to recall the learned path to reach the same object again. In between the two explorations of the virtual environment, participants were asked to undergo a gender categorization task during which they were exposed to sixty faces showing either neutral, fearful, or angry expressions. Results showed a significant interaction between emotions, time, and gender. In particular, the exposition to fearful faces, but not angry and neutral ones, decreased males' wayfinding performances (i.e., travel times and distance travelled), while females' performances were unaffected. Possible explanations for such gender and emotional dissimilarities are discussed.

Simulated interventions based on virtual reality to improve emergency evacuation under different spatial perception models

People's emergency evacuation behavior is heavily reliant on spatial knowledge. Different spatial cognitive ways shape spatial knowledge differently. To investigate the effect of different cognitive ways on people's wayfinding performance in an indoor fire situation. The study used a virtual reality simulation of a shopping mall environment, and 128 participants were recruited for the experiment. The experiment divided the participants into six groups and placed them in two scenarios, one with and one without fire. This study also explored two other intervention behaviors to improve the participants' evacuation behaviors. The results showed that participants who used navigation had shorter walking distances and wayfinding times than those who used the You are here (YAH) map. Secondly, participants in the fire scenario walked longer distances and took longer to evacuate than those in the no-fire scenario, and they perceived successful evacuation to be more difficult. Thirdly, the intervention behavior effectively improved the participants' evacuation behavior and increased the efficiency of the evacuation. The leader's intervention was more effective in helping participants evacuate than the range intervention in this experimental setting. The findings may advance the understanding of human evacuation behavior and provide important practical implications for people's safety and emergency preparedness in shopping malls.

Real-time continuous perceived uncertainty annotation for spatial navigation studies in buildings

In order to study the complex psychological processes involved in human wayfinding in increasingly complex built environments, it is crucial to have continuous self-report measures. In this study, we developed two different methods for continuously measuring perceived uncertainty during wayfinding, one is real-time continuous annotation (RCUA) using a joystick device and the other is post-hoc continuous annotation (CUA) involving annotations while watching video footage of recent wayfinding activity. To evaluate the usability, reliability, and validity of both approaches, we conducted a study with 54 participants. We assessed the measures' reactivity during different sign-seeing events. We also evaluated the convergent validity of both measures by comparing their outcomes with a self-report questionnaire, and assessed their discriminative and predictive validity by comparing uncertain values between known groups and correlating those values with wayfinding performance. Our findings suggest that both approaches were valid at the task level, but RCUA was better at capturing fine-grained dynamics of human experience. These continuous uncertainty measures can provide valuable insights into the fleeting nature of human experience and help identify "problem spots" for wayfinding in complex buildings.

Improving indoor wayfinding with AR-enabled egocentric cues: A comparative study

Indoor wayfinding poses significant challenges, as navigating complex environments can be difficult and time-consuming. Augmented reality (AR) has emerged as a promising solution to address these challenges. However, understanding how to effectively leverage AR techniques for large-scale indoor wayfinding scenarios remains unclear. In particular, the implications of AR-enabled egocentric perspectives have not been thoroughly investigated. This study aims to explore the potential benefits of AR-based egocentric perspectives and their impact on indoor wayfinding performance. A human-subject experiment (N = 31) was conducted in a multi-story building, utilizing a self-developed AR system capable of providing both traditional exocentric and innovative egocentric perspectives. The results of the experiment confirmed the performance and cognitive benefits of the AR-enabled egocentric perspective. Participants using the egocentric perspective demonstrated improved wayfinding efficiency, reduced cognitive load, and enhanced spatial awareness. These findings suggest that the AR-based egocentric perspective offers a more intuitive and effective approach to indoor wayfinding, enabling users to better process spatial information and make informed decisions during wayfinding tasks. The findings are expected to provide empirical evidence on the efficacy of AR systems for wayfinding and inspire new user interface (UI) designs that would better leverage the advantages of AR techniques.

Implicit versus explicit processing of visual, olfactory, and multimodal landmark information in human wayfinding.

Despite the predominant focus on visual perception in most studies, the role of humans' sense of smell in navigation has often been neglected. Recent research, however, could show that humans are indeed able to use their sense of smell for orientation, particularly when processed implicitly. In this study, we investigate whether implicit perception of olfactory landmarks enhanced wayfinding performance compared to explicit perception. Fifty-two people completed a wayfinding and a recognition task in a virtual maze at two times of testing 1 month apart. Participants either received olfactory, visual, or both cues at the intersections. Wayfinding performance was better for olfactory landmarks, which were not correctly remembered in the recognition task. In contrast, wayfinding performance was better when visual landmarks were correctly remembered. In the multimodal condition, wayfinding performance was better with landmarks being remembered at t1 and remained the same at t2. Our results suggest distinct implicit processing mechanisms within the olfactory system and therefore hold important implications for the nature of spatial odor processing extending beyond explicit odor localization tasks. The study highlights the importance for future studies to develop and employ further experimental methods that capture implicit processing across all of our senses. This is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of consciousness, as olfaction strongly influences our behavior, but remains largely latent unless deliberately honed through practice.

The effect of verbal instructions while using digital indoor wayfinding devices on gender, performance, and self-reported strategies

Studies indicate that verbal instructions may impact associations between gender and wayfinding performance (measured via relative direction pointing accuracy and walking pace). Following the increasing use of digital navigation applications in indoor environments, and their implications on acquiring and processing spatial information, the aim of this study is to evaluate the stability of previously established associations. The study included 34 participants (16 females) aged 24–34 and was conducted in an indoor hospital setting. In addition to using a navigation application, one of three types of verbal instructions (route, survey, or none) were given in each wayfinding scenario. Self-reported wayfinding strategies were also assessed. The findings indicate that male participants made fewer pointing accuracy errors and walked faster than females, regardless of the type of instructions given, implying that the impact of naturally employed wayfinding strategies by gender (route for females; survey for males) on wayfinding performance may be more dominant than that of navigational devices. In addition, when males and females were exposed to their unnatural wayfinding strategy, no significant differences were seen in either group's self-reported wayfinding strategies. These findings may suggest that applying survey knowledge to females may improve their indoor wayfinding.

Does viewing an environment without occluders improve spatial learning of a large-scale virtual environment?

This study tested the effect of providing a vista view of a large-scale environment on spatial learning. During normal navigation, we can only perceive limited regions at a time. To learn the spatial layout, we would have to integrate information from multiple views. If an unoccluded view of the full environment was displayed (vista view), would this improve spatial learning? We tested this experimentally using VR in two pre-registered experiments. We created vista views of urban environments by compressing the height of most non-target buildings, allowing participants to see the whole space and configuration of target buildings from an egocentric perspective. In Experiment 1 (N = 32), the vista view was presented during travel to each target on learning trials. In Experiment 2 (N = 36), the vista view was presented for 10s in a preview period before each learning trial. After the learning phase, they were tested on judgments of relative direction (JRD) to measure survey knowledge, and wayfinding to measure route knowledge. We hypothesized that the vista views would improve survey knowledge by allowing participants to directly observe the locations of targets relative to each other and global landmarks, but there might be little or no benefit for route knowledge. Surprisingly, even though the vista view allowed participants to see the configuration of targets at once, there was no improvement in JRD or wayfinding performance compared to the normal condition where visibility is limited to local regions. Our results suggest that a street-level unoccluded view may have limited benefit for learning a large-scale environment through navigation.

The role of selective attention in emergency wayfinding: An eye tracking-integrated virtual reality experiment

Emergencies, such as fire and earthquake, highly jeopardize human safety in indoor environments. In emergencies, acute stress activated by the threat of hazards influences human wayfinding efficiency and safety. However, the underlying cognitive basis of the influence of acute stress on the wayfinding process remains unclear. To narrow this knowledge gap, we focused on the core cognitive process, namely selective attention during emergency wayfinding, and conducted a virtual reality (VR)-based wayfinding experiment with a within-subject design. Three stress level settings were designed to induce participants’ stress. For each trial, participants were required to finish the wayfinding task within five minutes, during which a VR version of the Eriksen flanker task (EFT) was set to evaluate selective attention with the eye tracking function embedded in the VR helmet. The result demonstrated the positive effect of stress on the information process speed in selective attention measured by response time and the wayfinding performance measured by net distance. In addition, we found that the response time in selective attention plays a mediation role in the relationship between stress in the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and wayfinding performance. This study provides researchers with a new pathway to investigate the cognitive mechanism in emergency wayfinding with VR and eye tracking technologies. The findings are expected to advance the understanding of the underlying cognitive mechanism in emergency wayfinding, which has significant implications for developing evacuation simulation considering cognitive processes, as well as for evacuation planning of complex indoor environments and crowd evacuation management during indoor emergencies.

Townscape and Wayfinding: A Review of Existing Literature

Amidst the urban public health challenges in Malaysia, where obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and road traffic accidents are increasing, the importance of walkability in cities is gaining recognition. This paper provides an overview of the existing literature on the visual structure of townscapes and its impact on pedestrian navigation, investigating two main factors: environmental (visibility and saliency) and psychological (navigational competency). Urban visual studies and the theoretical progression are explained and compared. The review concludes that there is a general consensus on the significance of visual characteristics in orienting the urban environment. Specifically, the degree of permeability of the townscape visual scene and the availability of salient visual cues significantly influence wayfinding performance. Additionally, individual difference, including spatial ability, also reflects the utilisation of visual cues for wayfinding. However, further research is needed to explore a holistic approach encompassing the visual scene as a whole (gestalt) of the townscapes in the context of visual navigation.

Impact of Navigation Aid and Spatial Ability Skills on Wayfinding Performance and Workload in Indoor-Outdoor Campus Navigation: Challenges and Design

Wayfinding is important for everyone on a university campus to understand where they are and get to where they want to go to attend a meeting or a class. This study explores the dynamics of mobile navigation apps and the spatial ability skills of individuals on a wayfinding performance and perceived workload on a university campus wayfinding, including indoor-outdoor navigation, by focusing on three research objectives. (1) Compare the effectiveness of Google Maps (outdoor navigation app) and MazeMap (indoor-outdoor navigation app) on wayfinding performance and perceived workload in university campus wayfinding. (2) Investigate the impact of participants’ spatial ability skills on their wayfinding performance and perceived workload regardless of the used navigation app. (3) Highlight the challenges in indoor-outdoor university campus wayfinding using mobile navigation apps. To achieve this, a controlled experiment was conducted with 22 participants divided into a control (using Google Maps) and an experiment group (using MazeMap). Participants were required to complete a time-bound wayfinding task of navigating to meeting rooms in different buildings within the Gløshaugen campus of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. Participants were assessed on spatial ability tests, mental workload, and wayfinding performance using a questionnaire, observation notes and a short follow-up interview about the challenges they faced in the task. The findings reveal a negative correlation between overall spatial ability score (spatial reasoning, spatial orientation, and sense of direction) and perceived workload (NASA TLX score and Subjective Workload Rating) and a negative correlation between sense of direction score and total hesitation during wayfinding task. However, no significant difference was found between the Google Maps and the MazeMap group for wayfinding performance and perceived workload. The qualitative analysis resulted in five key challenge categories in university campus wayfinding, providing implications for designing navigation systems that better facilitate indoor-outdoor campus navigation.