Investigation of Preference Between the Least-Angle Strategy and the Initial Segment Strategy for Route Selection in Unknown Environments

This paper presents results from a desktop experiment in which the participants’ route selection behavior in an unknown street network is investigated. The participants were presented with a series of intersections in a virtual urban desktop environment in field view. Given the task to reach a distant wayfinding target that could be seen in the background, participants then had to state their preference for one of the two outgoing roads at each intersection. As the participants were unfamiliar with the environment they needed to apply a wayfinding strategy. This work analyzes the use of two wayfinding strategies with respect to the given wayfinding task, namely the least-angle strategy and the initial segment strategy. With the first strategy, the participant selects the street most in line with the target direction, whereas with the second strategy the participant prefers initially straight routes. The paper analyzes the observed preference behavior with respect to these two strategies and suggests an underlying mechanism (minimum triangle path) that explains in which situation either of the two strategies or both are applied.