Human Wayfinding in Unfamiliar Buildings: a Simulation with a Cognizing Agent

Existing cognitively based computational models for wayfinding focus primarily on the exploration of mental representations rather than the information needs for wayfinding. It is important to consider information needs because people trying to find their ways in unfamiliar environments do not have a previously acquired mental representation but depend on external information. The fundamental tenet of this work is that all information must be presented to the wayfinder at each decision point as “knowledge in the world.” Simulating people’s wayfinding behavior in a cognitively plausible way requires the integration of structures for information perception and cognition in the underlying model. In this work we use a cognizing agent to simulate people’s wayfinding processes in unfamiliar buildings. The agent-based model consists of two tiers: simulated states of the environment and simulated beliefs of the agent. The agent is modeled with state, an observation schema, a specific wayfinding strategy, and commonsense knowledge. The environment is modeled as a graph, where nodes represent decision points and edges represent lines of movement. The perceptual wayfinding model integrates the agent and its environment within a “Sense-Plan-Act” framework. It focuses on knowledge in the world to explain actions of the agent. The concepts of affordance and information are used to describe the kinds of knowledge the agent derives from the world by means of visual perception. Affordances are possibilities for action with reference to the agent. Information is necessary for the agent to decide which affordances to utilize. During the navigation process the agent accumulates beliefs about the environment by observing task-relevant affordances and information at decision points. The utilization of a “go-to” affordance leads the agent from one node to another where it is again provided with percepts. A successful navigation corresponds to the agent’s traversal from a start to a goal node. The proposed formal specifications of the agent-based model can be used to simulate people’s wayfinding behavior in spatial information and design systems in a cognitively plausible way. Such simulation helps to determine where and why people face wayfinding difficulties and what needs to be done to avoid them. The case of wayfinding in an airport, in which the signage in the airport is tested, is employed to demonstrate the perceptual wayfinding model.