Although the term "Wayfinding" has been defined by several authors, it subsumes a whole set of tasks that involve different cognitive processes, drawing on different cognitive components. Research on wayfinding has been conducted with different paradigms using a variety of wayfinding tasks. This makes it difficult to compare the results and implications of many studies. A systematic classification is needed in order to determine and investigate the cognitive processes and structural components of how humans solve wayfinding problems. Current classifications of wayfinding distinguish tasks on a rather coarse level or do not take the navigator's knowledge, a key factor in wayfinding, into account. We present an extended taxonomy of wayfinding that distinguishes tasks by external constraints as well as by the level of spatial knowledge that is available to the navigator. The taxonomy will help to decrease ambiguity of wayfinding tasks and it will facilitate understanding of the differentiated demands a navigator faces when solving wayfinding problems.

A series of four experiments investigating gaze behavior and decision making in the context of wayfinding is reported. Participants were presented with screen-shots of choice points taken in large virtual environments. Each screen-shot depicted alternative path options. In Experiment 1, participants had to decide between them in order to find an object hidden in the environment. In Experiment 2, participants were first informed about which path option to take as if following a guided route. Subsequently they were presented with the same images in random order and had to indicate which path option they chose during initial exposure. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate (1) that participants have a tendency to choose the path option that featured the longer line of sight, and (2) a robust gaze bias towards the eventually chosen path option. In Experiment 2, systematic differences in gaze behavior towards the alternative path options between encoding and decoding were observed. Based on data from Experiments 1 & 2 and two control experiments ensuring that fixation patterns were specific to the spatial tasks, we develop a tentative model of gaze behavior during wayfinding decision making suggesting that particular attention was paid to image areas depicting changes in the local geometry of the environments such as corners, openings, and occlusions. Together, the results suggest that gaze during a wayfinding tasks is directed toward, and can be predicted by, a subset of environmental features and that gaze bias effects are a general phenomenon of visual decision making.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract