Emotions have an influence on attention, decision making, and memory (all factors required for wayfinding). It is assumed that both an emotional state and emotionally laden landmarks have an impact on wayfinding and on later recollection of the path. We performed two experiments to investigate our hypotheses. First, in both experiments participants had to study a route in a virtual environment ...

This paper proposes location-aware mobile eye-tracking as a new method for the explanation of wayfinding behavior. We argue that the recording and analysis of an individual’s visual attention during wayfinding can provide insights into her spatial abilities and employed wayfinding strategies. Examples from an explorative pilot study with a pedestrian audio guide in an urban context illustrate t...

The ability to successfully navigate in healthcare facilities is an important goal for patients, visitors, and staff. Despite the fundamental nature of such behavior, it is not infrequent for planners to consider wayfinding only after the fact, once the building or building complex is complete. This review argues that more recognition is needed for the pivotal role of wayfinding in healthcare f...

Wayfinding aids are of great benefit because users do not have to rely on their learned geographic knowledge or orientation skills alone for successful navigation. Additionally, cognitive resources usually captured by this activity can be spent elsewhere. A challenge, however, remains for wayfinding aid developers. Due to the automation of wayfinding aids, navigator independencemay be decreasin...

This paper complements landmark research with an approach to formalize the structural salience of objects along routes. The aim is to automatically integrate salient objects—landmarks—into route directions. To this end, two directions of research are combined: the formalization of salience of objects and the conceptualization of wayfinding actions. We approach structural salience with some taxo...

Purpose Wayfinding, 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. Methods This cross-sectional study included 31 glaucomatous patients and 20 healthy ...

Visitors of complex buildings might be presented with individual visual route instructions shown on ambient displays. Such route instructions can automatically be generated by a modelling software. It was investigated which route instruction format would foster human wayfinding most effectively in a naturalistic wayfinding scenario in a real building. Egocentric, view-based formats (animated vi...

Three levels of virtual environment (VE) metric are proposed, based on: (1) users’ task performance (time taken, distance traveled and number of errors made), (2) physical behavior (locomotion, looking around, and time and error classification), and (3) decision making (i.e., cognitive) rationale (think aloud, interview and questionnaire). Examples of the use of these metrics are drawn from a d...

Wayfinding Wayfinding is a complex human activity involving moving along while evaluating alternatives and making decisions. It is defined as a spatial problem solving process with the three sub-processes decision-making, decision execution, and information processing. In our research we focus on the information processing aspect of wayfinding. Our main scientific goal is a cognitively plausibl...