Wayfinding Performance in and the Spatial Knowledge of a Color-coded Building for Adults and Children

The study reported here investigates the effect color has on the performance in a wayfinding task, the wayfinding strategies used and the acquisition of survey knowledge of a total of sixty participants: twenty second graders, sixth graders, and adults each. All participants had to find their way to a goal in a virtual environment with either a colored or a gray ground. After that, they had to find the shortest way from the start position to the goal in two consecutive trials, to draw a sketch map of the maze, and to mark the position of the goal figure in an overview of the maze. The results showed that color helped all participants to improve their performance in the wayfinding task, influenced the use of some wayfinding strategies but did not improve the acquisition of survey knowledge. Furthermore, there was a developmental achievement from second graders to adults. The results implicate firstly that children and adults similarly rely on the structuring of space through color when navigating through an unfamiliar large-scale environment, and secondly that there is a dissociation between wayfinding behavior and spatial knowledge.