This study examines the working memory systems involved in humanwayfinding. In the learning phase 24 participants learned two routes in a novelphotorealistic virtual environment displayed on a 220° screen, while they weredisrupted by a visual, a spatial, a verbal or ‐ in a control group ‐ no secondarytask. In the following wayfinding phase the partici...

This study evaluates three versions of the Wayfinding Effectiveness Scale (WES), developed to differentiate problems of wayfinding and wandering behavior of community-residing elders with dementia (EWD), in 266 dyads (EWD and caregiver) recruited from Alzheimer's Association chapters. Factor analyses yield a five-factor solution (explained variance = 62.6%): complex wayfinding goals, analytic s...

This paper presents a novel approach to simulate human wayfinding behaviour incorporating visual cognition into a software agent for a computer aided evaluation of wayfinding systems in large infrastructures. The proposed approach follows the Sense-Plan-Act paradigm comprised of a model for visual attention, navigation behaviour and pedestrian movement. Stochastic features of perception are inc...

People often need assistance to successfully perform wayfinding tasks in unfamiliar environments. Nowadays, a huge variety of wayfinding assistance systems exist. All these systems intend to present the needed information for a certain wayfinding situation in an adequate presentation. Some wayfinding assistance systems utilise findings for the field of cognitive sciences to develop and design c...

This short paper is concerned with strategies and cognitive processes of wayfinding in public buildings. We conducted an empirical study in a complex multi-level building, comparing performance measures of experienced and inexperienced participants in different wayfinding tasks. Thinking aloud protocols provided insights into navigation strategies, planning phases, use of landmarks and signage....

Wayfinding is a basic activity that people do throughout their entire lives as they navigate from one place to another. Many theories of spatial cognition have been developed to account for this behavior; however, most of the computational models focus on knowledge representation (e.g., cognitive maps) and do not consider the process of how people structure wayfinding tasks and space. This pape...

Wayfinding is a critical skill that enables drivers to navigate from one location to another. Wayfinding abilities decline as individuals age, which may increase older driver reliance on directional cues (e.g. signs) and divert cognitive resources at the expense of vehicle control and safety. Familiarity with an environment can facilitate wayfinding due to previous knowledge of the route. This ...

Mobile pedestrian wayfinding service is one of the most popular Location Based Services. In the era of Web 2.0, current mobile wayfinding services usually suffer from the following problems: the lack of social navigation support (utilizing other people‟s experiences), and the challenge of making user-generated content useful. This paper designs a collaborative filtering based route recommendati...

forthcomming 2005, Journal of Visual Languages and Computing (JVLC), prefinal draft, pls quote original 2 Abstract. The emergent interest in ontological and conceptual approaches to modeling route information results from new information technologies as well as from a multidisciplinary interest in spatial cognition. Linguistics investigates verbal route directions; cartography carries out resea...

The aim of this study was to evaluate motor control activity (active vs. passive condition) with regards to wayfinding and spatial learning difficulties in large-scale spaces for older adults. We compared virtual reality (VR)-based wayfinding and spatial memory (survey and route knowledge) performances between 30 younger and 30 older adults. A significant effect of age was obtained on the wayfi...