Overcoming Spatial Deskilling Using Landmark-Based Navigation Assistance Systems

Abstract Background The repeated use of navigation assistance systems leads to decreased spatial orienting abilities. Previous studies demonstrated that augmentation of landmarks using auditory navigation instructions can improve incidental spatial learning when driving on a single route through an unfamiliar environment. Objective Based on these results, a series of experiments was conducted to further investigate both the impairment of spatial knowledge acquisition by standard navigation instructions and the positive impact of landmark augmentation in auditory navigation instructions on incidental spatial learning. Method The first Experiment replicated the previous setup in a driving simulator without additional visual route indicators. In a second experiment, spatial knowledge was tested after watching a video depicting assisted navigation along a real-world urban route. Finally, a third Experiment investigated incidental spatial knowledge acquisition when participants actively navigated through an unrestricted real-world,urban environment. Results All three experiments demonstrated better cued-recall performance for participants navigating with landmark-based auditory navigation instructions as compared to standard instructions. Notably, standard instructions were associated with reduced learning of landmarks at navigation relevant intersections as compared to landmarks alongside straight segments and the recognition of novel landmarks. Conclusion The results revealed a suppression of spatial learning by established navigation instructions, which were overcome by landmark-based navigation instructions. This emphasizes the positive impact of auditory landmark augmentation on incidental spatial learning and its generalizability to real-life settings. Application This research is paving the way for navigation assistants that, instead of impairing orienting abilities, incidentally foster spatial learning during every-day navigation. Précis This series of three experiments replicates the suppression of spatial learning by standard navigation instructions and the positive impact of landmark augmentation in auditory navigation instructions on incidental spatial learning during assisted navigation. Three experiments with growing degree of realism revealed the applicability and generalizability to real-life settings

Cognitive map formation supported by auditory, haptic, and multimodal information in persons with blindness

For efficient navigation, the brain needs to adequately represent the environment in a cognitive map. In this review, we sought to give an overview of literature about cognitive map formation based on non-visual modalities in persons with blindness (PWBs) and sighted persons. The review is focused on the auditory and haptic modalities, including research that combines multiple modalities and real-world navigation. Furthermore, we addressed implications of route and survey representations. Taking together, PWBs as well as sighted persons can build up cognitive maps based on non-visual modalities, although the accuracy sometime somewhat differs between PWBs and sighted persons. We provide some speculations on how to deploy information from different modalities to support cognitive map formation. Furthermore, PWBs and sighted persons seem to be able to construct route as well as survey representations. PWBs can experience difficulties building up a survey representation, but this is not always the case, and research suggests that they can acquire this ability with sufficient spatial information or training. We discuss possible explanations of these inconsistencies

Landmark Visualization on Mobile Maps – Effects on Visual Attention, Spatial Learning, and Cognitive Load during Map-Aided Real-World Navigation of Pedestrians

Even though they are day-to-day activities, humans find navigation and wayfinding to be cognitively challenging. To facilitate their everyday mobility, humans increasingly rely on ubiquitous mobile maps as navigation aids. However, the over-reliance on and habitual use of omnipresent navigation aids deteriorate humans' short-term ability to learn new information about their surroundings and induces a long-term decline in spatial skills. This deterioration in spatial learning is attributed to the fact that these aids capture users' attention and cause them to enter a passive navigation mode. Another factor that limits spatial learning during map-aided navigation is the lack of salient landmark information on mobile maps. Prior research has already demonstrated that wayfinders rely on landmarks—geographic features that stand out from their surroundings—to facilitate navigation and build a spatial representation of the environments they traverse. Landmarks serve as anchor points and help wayfinders to visually match the spatial information depicted on the mobile map with the information collected during the active exploration of the environment. Considering the acknowledged significance of landmarks for human wayfinding due to their visibility and saliency, this thesis investigates an open research question: how to graphically communicate landmarks on mobile map aids to cue wayfinders' allocation of attentional resources to these task-relevant environmental features. From a cartographic design perspective, landmarks can be depicted on mobile map aids on a graphical continuum ranging from abstract 2D text labels to realistic 3D buildings with high visual fidelity. Based on the importance of landmarks for human wayfinding and the rich cartographic body of research concerning their depiction on mobile maps, this thesis investigated how various landmark visualization styles affect the navigation process of two user groups (expert and general wayfinders) in different navigation use contexts (emergency and general navigation tasks). Specifically, I conducted two real-world map-aided navigation studies to assess the influence of various landmark visualization styles on wayfinders' navigation performance, spatial learning, allocation of visual attention, and cognitive load. In Study I, I investigated how depicting landmarks as abstract 2D building footprints or realistic 3D buildings on the mobile map affected expert wayfinders' navigation performance, visual attention, spatial learning, and cognitive load during an emergency navigation task. I asked expert navigators recruited from the Swiss Armed Forces to follow a predefined route using a mobile map depicting landmarks as either abstract 2D building footprints or realistic 3D buildings and to identify the depicted task-relevant landmarks in the environment. I recorded the experts' gaze behavior with a mobile eye-tracer and their cognitive load with EEG during the navigation task, and I captured their incidental spatial learning at the end of the task. The wayfinding experts' exhibited high navigation performance and low cognitive load during the map-aided navigation task regardless of the landmark visualization style. Their gaze behavior revealed that wayfinding experts navigating with realistic 3D landmarks focused more on the visualizations of landmarks on the mobile map than those who navigated with abstract 2D landmarks, while the latter focused more on the depicted route. Furthermore, when the experts focused for longer on the environment and the landmarks, their spatial learning improved regardless of the landmark visualization style. I also found that the spatial learning of experts with self-reported low spatial abilities improved when they navigated with landmarks depicted as realistic 3D buildings. In Study II, I investigated the influence of abstract and realistic 3D landmark visualization styles on wayfinders sampled from the general population. As in Study I, I investigated wayfinders' navigation performance, visual attention, spatial learning, and cognitive load. In contrast to Study I, the participants in Study II were exposed to both landmark visualization styles in a navigation context that mimics everyday navigation. Furthermore, the participants were informed that their spatial knowledge of the environment would be tested after navigation. As in Study I, the wayfinders in Study II exhibited high navigation performance and low cognitive load regardless of the landmark visualization style. Their visual attention revealed that wayfinders with low spatial abilities and wayfinders familiar with the study area fixated on the environment longer when they navigated with realistic 3D landmarks on the mobile map. Spatial learning improved when wayfinders with low spatial abilities were assisted by realistic 3D landmarks. Also, when wayfinders were assisted by realistic 3D landmarks and paid less attention to the map aid, their spatial learning improved. Taken together, the present real-world navigation studies provide ecologically valid results on the influence of various landmark visualization styles on wayfinders. In particular, the studies demonstrate how visualization style modulates wayfinders' visual attention and facilitates spatial learning across various user groups and navigation use contexts. Furthermore, the results of both studies highlight the importance of individual differences in spatial abilities as predictors of spatial learning during map-assisted navigation. Based on these findings, the present work provides design recommendations for future mobile maps that go beyond the traditional concept of "one fits all." Indeed, the studies support the cause for landmark depiction that directs individual wayfinders' visual attention to task-relevant landmarks to further enhance spatial learning. This would be especially helpful for users with low spatial skills. In doing so, future mobile maps could dynamically adapt the visualization style of landmarks according to wayfinders' spatial abilities for cued visual attention, thus meeting individuals' spatial learning needs

Spatial orientation and navigation in microgravity

Manuscript for Spatial Processing in Navigation, Imagery and Perception, F. Mast and L. Janeke, eds.This chapter summarizes the spatial disorientation problems and navigation difficulties described by astronauts and cosmonauts, and relates them to research findings on orientation and navigation in humans and animals. Spacecraft crew are uniquely free to float in any relative orientation with respect to the cabin, and experience no vestibular and haptic cues that directly indicate the direction of “down”. They frequently traverse areas with inconsistently aligned visual vertical cues. As a result, most experience “Visual Reorientation Illusions” (VRIs) where the spacecraft floors, walls and ceiling surfaces exchange subjective identities. The illusion apparently results from a sudden reorientation of the observer’s allocentric reference frame. Normally this frame realigns to local interior surfaces, but in some cases it can jump to the Earth beyond, as with “Inversion Illusions” and EVA height vertigo. These perceptual illusions make it difficult for crew to maintain a veridical perception of orientation and place within the spacecraft, make them more reliant upon landmark and route strategies for 3D navigation, and can trigger space motion sickness. This chapter distinguishes VRIs and Inversion Illusions, based on firsthand descriptions from Vostok, Apollo, Skylab, Mir, Shuttle and International Space Station crew. Theories on human “gravireceptor” and “idiotropic” biases, visual “frame” and “polarity” cues, top-down processing effects on object orientation perception, mental rotation and “direction vertigo” are discussed and related to animal experiments on limbic head direction and place cell responses. It is argued that the exchange in perceived surface identity characteristic of human VRIs is caused by a reorientation of the unseen allocentric navigation plane used by CNS mechanisms coding place and direction, as evidenced in the animal models. Human VRI susceptibility continues even on long flights, perhaps because our orientation and navigation mechanisms evolved to principally support 2D navigation.NASA Cooperative Research Agreement NCC9-58 with the National Space Biomedical Research Institut

Design of Rotorcraft Performance-Based Navigation Routes and Procedures: Current Challenges and Prospects

Helicopters play a relevant role in society due to their extraordinary versatility. However, they are particularly vulnerable to adverse weather conditions as the majority of operations are carried out under visual flight rules. This is partly due to the shortage of tailored helicopter instrument flight procedures and routes. The emergence of the performance-based navigation concept supported by the latest satellite navigation technologies has opened up new possibilities for rotorcraft operations in the last few years. This paper presents an extensive overview of the state of the art in the design of performance-based navigation routes for helicopters from two main standpoints: instrument flight procedures and route spacing. Apart from summarizing recent and current major initiatives to implement helicopter low-level routes and flight procedures, this paper provides an outlook on the latest advances and ongoing efforts by the International Civil Aviation Organization in the field of helicopter procedure and route design to ensure flyability, obstacle clearance, strategical separation, and segregation of traffic flows. In addition, several gaps in the current design criteria are identified and suggestions for future research and development are outlined

Indoor navigation map design based on the analysis of space characteristics

The application scope of geographical information science is gradually evolving from large-scale to small-scale environments (Afyouni et al., 2010). The space that we are dealing with is no longer limited to outdoor spaces but is extended to indoor spaces. Facing the indoor structure of complex buildings, the demand for indoor location services such as navigation and emergency evacuation services is increasing. Indoor navigation maps are an important tool for people to arrive at their destination in large public buildings. There are a lot of indoor navigation services to help mobile users but there are still some gaps between map design and the navigation process, such as how to model the path of the multi-dimensional structure of indoor environments, quantify the visibility condition of indoor areas, and compensate for the lack of semantic annotation of indoor corridors (e.g., there are typically no road signs as in the outdoor case). Most existing application studies focus on indoor maps that visualize the basic indoor spatial structures, while few take into account the navigation process in buildings. From the scientific perspective, there are a lot of aspects for designing indoor navigation maps (e.g., 2D/3D, visibility, and semantics). However, it is unclear which type of design is most effective for aiding pedestrians in indoor wayfinding. There has been some research on the design and representation of indoor maps. Nossum (2011) proposed a "Tubes" map representation method, which overlays the access information of different floors on the same plane, allowing users to understand the structure of each floor inside a building with the help of only one map. Li et al. (2013) studied indoor maps with multiple modes of representation on mobile terminals. They pointed out that both 2D and 3D maps significantly improved pointing and vertical navigation accuracy compared to the control condition with no map assistance, and argued that better visualization of the layered structure of the building could facilitate multi-level cognitive map development. The indoor space has special characteristics as the building space is divided by numerous walls and rooms, which limit the user's visual reach and hinder the overall perception of the space. In the process of indoor navigation, relevant studies have provided auxiliary guidance information for turns and specific decision points, adding guidance images, text, and symbols to convey information to users (De et al., 2019). It is also necessary to provide good navigational aids for areas with poor visibility. For example, Pang et al. (2021) generated an indoor visibility map based on a navigation network in corridor space. There are no names for the passages in an indoor space, but there are some landmarks, which are important elements for people to communicate route information, either verbally or graphically, and can assist pedestrians in making route decisions when they are at a fork along a path (May et al., 2003). In both outdoor and indoor environments, landmarks are generally selected considering the visual, semantic, and structural salience of the objects (Zhu et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2022). Different from outdoor landforms, residential areas, water systems, vegetation, and other elements, indoor spaces are mainly artificially constructed entities. Indoor space elements refer to all the physical elements existing in the actual space, which describe the frame structure and local details of the indoor space. In map visualization, some elements are generally selected for mapping according to the map form, the specific purpose of the map, or the specific users (Ryder, 2015). According to the importance of the elements to the visualization of an indoor navigation map, the elements that are not salient enough for user attention and that have little or even interfering effects on reflecting the indoor navigation should be discarded

A model of ant route navigation driven by scene familiarity

In this paper we propose a model of visually guided route navigation in ants that captures the known properties of real behaviour whilst retaining mechanistic simplicity and thus biological plausibility. For an ant, the coupling of movement and viewing direction means that a familiar view specifies a familiar direction of movement. Since the views experienced along a habitual route will be more familiar, route navigation can be re-cast as a search for familiar views. This search can be performed with a simple scanning routine, a behaviour that ants have been observed to perform. We test this proposed route navigation strategy in simulation, by learning a series of routes through visually cluttered environments consisting of objects that are only distinguishable as silhouettes against the sky. In the first instance we determine view familiarity by exhaustive comparison with the set of views experienced during training. In further experiments we train an artificial neural network to perform familiarity discrimination using the training views. Our results indicate that, not only is the approach successful, but also that the routes that are learnt show many of the characteristics of the routes of desert ants. As such, we believe the model represents the only detailed and complete model of insect route guidance to date. What is more, the model provides a general demonstration that visually guided routes can be produced with parsimonious mechanisms that do not specify when or what to learn, nor separate routes into sequences of waypoints

The Role of Landscapes and Landmarks in Bee Navigation: A Review.

The ability of animals to explore landmarks in their environment is essential to their fitness. Landmarks are widely recognized to play a key role in navigation by providing information in multiple sensory modalities. However, what is a landmark? We propose that animals use a hierarchy of information based upon its utility and salience when an animal is in a given motivational state. Focusing on honeybees, we suggest that foragers choose landmarks based upon their relative uniqueness, conspicuousness, stability, and context. We also propose that it is useful to distinguish between landmarks that provide sensory input that changes ("near") or does not change ("far") as the receiver uses these landmarks to navigate. However, we recognize that this distinction occurs on a continuum and is not a clear-cut dichotomy. We review the rich literature on landmarks, focusing on recent studies that have illuminated our understanding of the kinds of information that bees use, how they use it, potential mechanisms, and future research directions

Bottom-up retinotopic organization supports top-down mental imagery

Finding a path between locations is a routine task in daily life. Mental navigation is often used to plan a route to a destination that is not visible from the current location. We first used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and surface-based averaging methods to find high-level brain regions involved in imagined navigation between locations in a building very familiar to each participant. This revealed a mental navigation network that includes the precuneus, retrosplenial cortex (RSC), parahippocampal place area (PPA), occipital place area (OPA), supplementary motor area (SMA), premotor cortex, and areas along the medial and anterior intraparietal sulcus. We then visualized retinotopic maps in the entire cortex using wide-field, natural scene stimuli in a separate set of fMRI experiments. This revealed five distinct visual streams or ‘fingers’ that extend anteriorly into middle temporal, superior parietal, medial parietal, retrosplenial and ventral occipitotemporal cortex. By using spherical morphing to overlap these two data sets, we showed that the mental navigation network primarily occupies areas that also contain retinotopic maps. Specifically, scene-selective regions RSC, PPA and OPA have a common emphasis on the far periphery of the upper visual field. These results suggest that bottom-up retinotopic organization may help to efficiently encode scene and location information in an eye-centered reference frame for top-down, internally generated mental navigation. This study pushes the border of visual cortex further anterior than was initially expected