How Best to Orient Travelers

Primary Objective: Compare the effects of written landmark, cardinal, and left/right street directions on navigational success at the beginning of a walking route. Research Design: Matched control group comparison design Methods & Procedures: We compared navigational performance of 18 adults with acquired brain injury (ABI) to controls matched for gender, age, and education. Participants followed written directions with landmark, cardinal, or left/right directions at each of four locations. Dependent measures included accuracy, directness, stated confidence, and preference. Main Results: Participants with ABI demonstrated greater errors and hesitancy than controls when presented with cardinal and left/right directions. Both groups performed equally well with landmark directions. All participants stated preference for landmark directions. Participants with ABI were more likely to guess or become confused when following cardinal or left/right directions. Conclusions: Landmarks served as a performance equalizer between groups for navigational performance at the start of a walking route. Implications for the design of navigational assistive tools and future research are discussed.