Spatial Descriptions as Navigational Aids: A Cognitive Analysis of Route Directions

Daniel, Marie-Paule; Denis, Michel

doi:10.1007/s001970050050

Cited by 86 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…[8]). For route directions to be complete, they need to also contain a description of how to identify the decision point where an action is to take place.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Landmarks are a means to identify crucial points along the route where turning actions need to be taken or could be taken (decision points), as well as to locate the beginning and the end of the route [17]. Landmarks also play a role in the descriptive part of route directions, to locate other landmarks, and to confirm that the follower has correctly executed a turn [8]. Salient landmarks can also be used as a criterion to find the best route in terms of how easy it will be to follow [5,21].…”

Section: The Role Of Landmarks In Route Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our experiment, the participants have given an average rating of 3.0 for the instruction "turn slightly right". The input vector for this particular situation is (8,5,8,5,7,7,8), and our regression model predicts a score of 3.18. Note that the average confidence scores do not span the whole range between 1 and 5.…”

Section: Deciding What Instruction To Givementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, participants gave an average rating of 5.0 for the relative instruction, which is not surprising given the simple street configuration. The input vector for this particular situation is (5,4,8,8,5,3,8), and the model predicts a value of 5.02. Here, an automatic system could confidently generate an instruction like "Turn left here".…”

Section: Deciding What Instruction To Givementioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

“Turn Left” Versus “Walk Towards the Café”: When Relative Directions Work Better Than Landmarks

Götze

Boye

2015

Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An automatic mechanism that gives verbal navigation instructions to pedestrians in situ needs to take into account a number of factors. Besides giving the instruction at the right time and place, the information needs to be as unambiguous as possible for the user to both choose the correct path and be confident in doing so. Humans make extensive use of landmarks when describing the way to others and are more successful following instructions that include landmarks. We present a study comparing landmark-based instructions with relative direction instructions on pedestrians in a real city environment, measuring both objective and subjective success. We find that at some decision points, relative direction instructions work better. We present a method that uses openly available geographic data to predict which kind of instruction is preferable at a given decision point.

show abstract

“…[8]). For route directions to be complete, they need to also contain a description of how to identify the decision point where an action is to take place.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Role Of Landmarks In Route Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Deciding What Instruction To Givementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Deciding What Instruction To Givementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

“Turn Left” Versus “Walk Towards the Café”: When Relative Directions Work Better Than Landmarks

Götze

Boye

2015

Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Many researchers have evaluated the effectiveness of navigation assistance systems during wayfinding (Ishikawa et al 2008;Muenzer et al 2012;Brown and Laurier 2012) and showed that turn-by-turn (TbT) systems hardly support spatial learning. Studies in cognitive wayfinding research showed the importance of landmarks at decision points (Denis 1997;Daniel and Denis 1998;Richter and Klippel 2005). In our study, we explore human wayfinding instructions and analyze them regarding the use of information that does not refer to turning actions but supports orientation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Orientation information in wayfinding instructions: evidences from human verbal and visual instructions

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although the importance of landmarks for human navigation and for orientation is well accepted, most of today's navigation systems hardly incorporate any landmark information or information supporting orientation. Different from previous research that only addressed turn-by-turn instructions in verbal forms and landmarks at decision points, the present study provides empirical evidence that human-generated wayfinding instructions are not solely turn-by-turn but the majority of instructions provide orientation information. We propose a new classification scheme for identifying information in wayfinding instructions that will not only support orientation but also facilitate construction of mental map. We explored and compared two forms of representations-visual sketch map and verbal instructions. Results revealed that landmark information is important in human wayfinding instructions with particular importance of local landmarks along the route and global landmarks that support orientation. In addition, sketch maps contained more global landmarks than verbal instructions. In contrast to turn-by-turn navigation, we found that many instructions in human route descriptions do not always refer to turning actions but to orientation. We conducted interviews with a set of raters on what they consider helpful information in both forms of representations. These results confirmed our findings and supported that future route descriptions can be more meaningful and helpful when they are enriched with orientation information as they conform to how humans structure wayfinding instructions.

show abstract

Principles and practices for communicating route knowledge

Allen

2000

Appl. Cognit. Psychol.

137

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A series of experiments was conducted to examine the eect of several principle-based practices hypothesized as being important in communicating route knowledge. Results indicated that remembering and following route directions were facilitated by the practice of (a) presenting the directions in correct temporal±spatial order, consistent with the principle of natural order, (b) concentrating information in statements concerned with choice points, consistent with the principle of referential determinacy, and, to some extent, (c) using spatial designations with which most listeners are facile, consistent with the principle of mutual knowledge. In all studies, women had more diculty than men in following the route from verbal directions. Possible avenues for explaining this sex-related dierence are suggested.

show abstract

Spatial Descriptions as Navigational Aids: A Cognitive Analysis of Route Directions

Cited by 86 publications

References 0 publications

“Turn Left” Versus “Walk Towards the Café”: When Relative Directions Work Better Than Landmarks

“Turn Left” Versus “Walk Towards the Café”: When Relative Directions Work Better Than Landmarks

Orientation information in wayfinding instructions: evidences from human verbal and visual instructions

Principles and practices for communicating route knowledge

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About