Modified navigation instructions for spatial navigation assistance systems lead to incidental spatial learning

© 2017 Gramann, Hoepner and Karrer-Gauss. Spatial cognitive skills deteriorate with the increasing use of automated GPS navigation and a general decrease in the ability to orient in space might have further impact on independence, autonomy, and quality of life. In the present study we investigate whether modified navigation instructions support incidental spatial knowledge acquisition. A virtual driving environment was used to examine the impact of modified navigation instructions on spatial learning while using a GPS navigation assistance system. Participants navigated through a simulated urban and suburban environment, using navigation support to reach their destination. Driving performance as well as spatial learning was thereby assessed. Three navigation instruction conditions were tested: (i) a control group that was provided with classical navigation instructions at decision points, and two other groups that received navigation instructions at decision points including either (ii) additional irrelevant information about landmarks or (iii) additional personally relevant information (i.e., individual preferences regarding food, hobbies, etc.), associated with landmarks. Driving performance revealed no differences between navigation instructions. Significant improvements were observed in both modified navigation instruction conditions on three different measures of spatial learning and memory: subsequent navigation of the initial route without navigation assistance, landmark recognition, and sketch map drawing. Future navigation assistance systems could incorporate modified instructions to promote incidental spatial learning and to foster more general spatial cognitive abilities. Such systems might extend mobility across the lifespan

This is the tricky part: When directions become difficult

Automated route guidance systems, both web-based systems and en-route systems, have become commonplace in recent years. These systems often replace humangenerated directions, which are often incomplete, vague, or in error. However, humangenerated directions have the ability to differentiate between easy and complex steps through language in a way that is more difficult in automated systems. This article examines a set of human-generated verbal directions to better understand why some parts of directions are perceived as being more difficult than the remaining steps. Insights from this analysis will lead to recommendations to improve the next generation of automated route guidance systems

This is the tricky part: When directions become difficult

Automated route guidance systems, both web-based systems and en-route systems, have become commonplace in recent years. These systems often replace human-generated directions, which are often incomplete, vague, or in error. However, human-generated directions have the ability to differentiate between easy and complex steps through language in a way that is more difficult in automated systems. This article examines a set of human-generated verbal directions to better understand why some parts of directions are perceived as being more difficult than the remaining steps. Insights from this analysis will lead to recommendations to improve the next generation of automated route guidance systems

Predefining regionalised environments for assisted navigation : does incorporating regions into navigation instructions assist a user’s spatial understanding of the environment they aretravelling through?

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesThis thesis proposes introducing pre-defined regionalised areas into navigation instructions to allow drivers to learn more about the environment they’re travelling through. Following detailed navigation instructions, drivers are no longer required to learn about and understand their environment, which leaves drivers reliant on these navigation devices. An experiment using a virtual environment was conducted to evaluate if a group with additional regional instructions would complete tasks more effectively than a group with traditional instructions. While the regional group performed better on all accounts, statistically significant results were only found in three of ten variables. There were however, large differences in task completion rates, suggesting that incorporating pre-defined regions to navigation instructions does make a difference in drivers’ understanding of their environment

Influence of Motivation on Wayfinding

This research explores the role of affect in the domain of human wayfinding by asking if increased motivation will alter the performance across various routes of increasing complexity. Participants were asked to perform certain navigation tasks within an indoor Virtual Reality (VR) environment under either motivated and not-motivated instructions. After being taught to navigate along simple and complex routes, participants were tested on both the previously learned routes and new routes that could be implicitly derived from the prior spatial knowledge. Finally, participants were tested on their ability to follow schematized instructions to explore familiar and unfamiliar areas in the VR environment. Performance of the various spatial tasks across the motivated and control groups indicated that motivation improved performance in all but the most complex conditions. Results of the empirical study were used to create a theoretical model that accounts for the influence of affect on the access of route knowledge. Results of the research suggest the importance of including past knowledge and affect of the traveler as components of future wayfinding systems

Synthesizing multi-destinations map with factor graph

目的提出一种结合因子图的多目的地地图生成方法。方法首先,由用户选择多个感兴趣的目的地,系统根据相应规则自动地选择与目的地最相关的路线。然后,通过定义一组衡量布局质量的约束规则,采用因子图方法将定义的每条规则编码成因子,并采用METrOPOlIS HASTIngS算法对由因子图构建得到的目标分布函数进行采样得到符合约束规则的多目的地地图。结果实验结果表明,使用这种方法得到的多目的地地图,可以在同一显示空间中显示多个目的地之间的道路信息,同时又保留了各目的地区域之间的拓扑和空间关系。结论提出的多目的地地图能有效地为用户提供导航,解决了当前在线地图无法在同一视野中为用户提供空间距离较远的区域道路信息的问题。Objective An increasing number of people usually need to work or take a holiday with their families in another city.Therefore,having an accurate map is necessary when they arrive in an unfamiliar city.Some online maps,such as Baidu or Google,can provide sufficient but redundant information.Users only need some information about their destinations,but excessive details on other places give rise to difficulty in reading maps.Meanwhile,users often need to perform many tedious operations,such as zoom in and zoom out,to obtain useful information.Therefore,we present a factor graphbased method to generate multiple destinations maps.This method can provide users with only useful information so that they can obtain help easily.Method Our method consists of three steps.First,users select multiple destinations of interest.The detail of some areas that are far from the user destinations is unnecessary.Second,the proposed system automatically selects the most relevant subset of roads that are related to the destinations according to certain predefined guidelines.These guidelines ensure that the selected road network maintains conciseness and connectivity so that users can arrive at any destination.Finally,the layout is adjusted to present an accurate map.The map should ensure that the details of the information on the destinations are clear while maintaining the original topology of the map.Moreover,we should maximize screen usage to display more information.Thus,we identify a set of design rules to constrain the map layout.We conductsome preprocessing of the road network to implement layout optimization.We segment the road network into several rectangular areas according to the user destinations.Every rectangle contains only one destination.During optimization,we can choose a rectangular area-based perturbation or point-based perturbation.Furthermore,we use factor graph,a type of graphical model,to improve algorithm efficiency by encoding constraints as factors.We obtain the desired map layout with the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm by sampling from the target distribution constructed by the factor graph.Result Online maps fail to provide selective information,whereas other maps,such as hand-drawn maps,often produce map deformation that affects map reading.The multi-destination maps generated by the proposed method not only provide users with detailed road information of multiple destinations in the same view while maintaining the topology among destinations.Moreover,unnecessary information is automatically omitted.Conclusion In this study,we present a new method to generate maps with a factor graph.The factor graph can clearly describe the relationships of objects.Experiment results indicate that the proposed approach can efficiently solve the problem confronting online maps,which fail to provide users with sufficient and detailed information on multi-destinations in the same view.国家自然科学基金项目(60903129); 国家重点基础研究发展规划(973)基金项目(2013CB329502

The normal, natural troubles of driving with GPS

In-car GPS based satellite navigation systems are now a common part of driving, providing turn-by-turn navigation instructions on smartphones, portable units or in-car dash-board navigation systems. This paper uses interactional analysis of video data from fifteen naturalistically recorded journeys with GPS to understand the navigational practices deployed by drivers and passengers. The paper documents five types of ‘trouble ’ where GPS systems cause issues and confusion for drivers around: destinations, routes, maps & sensors, timing and relevance and legality. The paper argues that to design GPS systems better we need to move beyond the notion of a docile driver who follows GPS command blindly, to a better understanding of how drivers, passengers and GPS systems work together. We develop this in discuss-ing how technology might better support ‘instructed action’

Learning significant user locations with GPS and GSM

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-59).This thesis addresses the tasks of place discovery and place recognition - learning and recognizing places significant to a user - by analyzing GPS location and GSM cell tower data collected from the user's mobile phone. Location provides valuable context into the user's environment, and place-discovery and recognition algorithms enable human-centric systems to communicate with the user in human terms. In this thesis, we introduce a novel two-phased approach to place-discovery and recognition that combines the advantages of GPS and GSM cell data. We design and implement a system that produces a compact travel summary from the user's daily GPS logs. We then use computational geometry to investigate the aspect ratios of GSM cell coverage polygons as an optimization to place recognition. Finally, we conclude by presenting a one-month empirical study to demonstrate the effectiveness of our two-phased approach, and identify a set of anomalies in our experiment that can direct further development of place-discovery systems.by Xiao Yu.M.Eng