The focus of this chapter is an examination of the relationship between cognitive maps and travel behavior in urban environments. We do this examination incrementally, beginning with clarifications of terms relating to cognitive maps, cognitive mapping and wayfinding. We then emphasize transportation-related issues such as cognizing of transportation networks, path selection, wayfinding and nav...

The explorative study presented in this paper investigates indoor wayfinding strategies and inferences of users in an unknown building. Participants were asked to find two consecutive targets in a multilevel building with the help of written route instructions. Routes were generated by a dialogue system and tested against adjusted instructions containing additional architectural information. Th...

Fostering spatial competencies of children has been positively discussed across disciplines and institutes. As most exiting tools for spatial learning are based on existing software such as geographic information systems, these tools may not be suitable for children at the age of 8 to 12. With this goal in mind, we designed the Orientation Gaming App (Ori-Gami) fostering the development of spat...

Wayfinding in public buildings often proves to be a challenge especially for first time visitors. The experiment investigates the relative effectiveness and efficiency of external aids for navigation in a complex multi-level, multi-building ensemble. A previous experiment provided the performance baseline for the re-design and prototype evaluation of the information system. Navigation aids were...

Route directions are a window to people’s mental representation of space. They highlight problems in conceptualizing a space, for example, areas that are complex and difficult to grasp. Analyzing the structure of route directions helps revealing such difficulties in an environment’s conceptualization and allows comparing two different route directions for the same route with respect to their (e...

Landmarks are an essential part of human navigation. In most situations, landmarks used for navigation are available in the environment. However, landmarks can also be set up deliberately to facilitate future orientation. The question how such navigator-driven and individual landmark placement affects spatial learning and what strategies are used has rarely been examined. We addressed this ques...

Prior research indicates that spatial skills, such as Mental Rotation Skills (MRS), are a strong predictor for mathematics achievement. Other studies have shown that MRS can be instilled through training and that they are a good predictor of another spatial skill: route learning and wayfinding skills. This paper explores these assumptions and reports an experiment with 43 undergraduate psycholo...

It is common for a wayfinding task to involve travel across a familiar and an unfamiliar region that encompass different parts of the same route. Routes of this kind would entail schematized descriptions and the schematization would directly depend on the familiarity of the region being described. This paper presents a new formalization that identifies key conceptual elements of such routes and...

We investigate verbal learning and cognitive map development of simulated layouts using a non-visual interface called a virtual verbal display (VVD). Previous studies have questioned the efficacy of VVDs in supporting cognitive mapping (Giudice, Bakdash, Legge, & Roy, in revision). Two factors of interface fidelity are investigated which could account for this deficit, spatial language vs. spat...

Finding one's way in a large-scale environment may engage different cognitive processes than following a familiar route. The neural bases of these processes were investigated using functional MRI (fMRI). Subjects found their way in one virtual-reality town and followed a well-learned route in another. In a control condition, subjects followed a visible trail. Within subjects, accurate wayfindin...