Cognitive Principles of Schematisation for Wayfinding Assistance

People often need assistance to successfully perform wayfinding tasks in unfamiliar environments. Nowadays, a huge variety of wayfinding assistance systems exists. All these systems intend to present the needed information for a certain wayfinding situation in an adequate presentation. Some wayfinding assistance systems utilize findings for the field of cognitive sciences to develop and design cognitive ergonomic approaches. These approaches aim to be systems with which the users can effortless interact with and which present needed information in a way the user can acquire the information naturally. Therefore it is necessary to determinate the information needs of the user in a certain wayfinding task and to investigate how this information is processed and conceptualised by the wayfinder to be able to present it adequately. Cognitive motivated schematic maps are an example which employ this knowledge and emphasise relevant information and present it in an easily readable way. In my thesis I present a transfer approach to reuse the knowledge of well-grounded knowledge of schematisation techniques from one externalisation such as maps to another externalization such as virtual environments. A analysis of the informational need of the specific wayfinding task route following is done one the hand of a functional decomposition as well as a deep analysis of representation-theoretic consideration of the external representations maps and virtual environments. Concluding from these results, guidelines for transferring schematisation principles between different representation types are proposed. Specifically, this thesis chose the exemplary transfer of the schematisation technique wayfinding choremes from a map presentation into a virtual environment to present the theoretic requirements for a successful transfer. Wayfinding choremes are abstract mental concepts of turning action which are accessible as graphical externalisation integrated into route maps. These wayfinding choremes maps emphasis the turning action along the route by displaying the angular information as prototypes of 45° or 90°. This schematisation technique enhances wayfinding performance by supporting the matching processes between the map representation and the internal mental representation of the user. I embed the concept of wayfinding choremes into a virtual environment and present a study to test if the transferred schematisation technique also enhance the wayfinding performance. The empirical investigations present a successful transfer of the concept of the wayfinding choremes. Depending on the complexity of the route the embedded schematization enhance the wayfinding performance of participants who try to follow a route from memory. Participants who trained and recall the route in a schematised virtual environment make fewer errors than the participants of the unmodified virtual world. This thesis sets an example of the close research circle of cognitive behavioural studies to representation-theoretical considerations to applications of wayfinding assistance and their evaluations back to new conclusions in cognitive science. It contributes an interdisciplinary comprehensive inspection of the interplay of environmental factors and mental processes on the example of angular information and mental distortion of this information

Cognitive Principles of Schematisation for Wayfinding Assistance

People often need assistance to successfully perform wayfinding tasks in unfamiliar environments. Nowadays, a huge variety of wayfinding assistance systems exists. All these systems intend to present the needed information for a certain wayfinding situation in an adequate presentation. Some wayfinding assistance systems utilize findings for the field of cognitive sciences to develop and design cognitive ergonomic approaches. These approaches aim to be systems with which the users can effortless interact with and which present needed information in a way the user can acquire the information naturally. Therefore it is necessary to determinate the information needs of the user in a certain wayfinding task and to investigate how this information is processed and conceptualised by the wayfinder to be able to present it adequately. Cognitive motivated schematic maps are an example which employ this knowledge and emphasise relevant information and present it in an easily readable way. In my thesis I present a transfer approach to reuse the knowledge of well-grounded knowledge of schematisation techniques from one externalisation such as maps to another externalization such as virtual environments. A analysis of the informational need of the specific wayfinding task route following is done one the hand of a functional decomposition as well as a deep analysis of representation-theoretic consideration of the external representations maps and virtual environments. Concluding from these results, guidelines for transferring schematisation principles between different representation types are proposed. Specifically, this thesis chose the exemplary transfer of the schematisation technique wayfinding choremes from a map presentation into a virtual environment to present the theoretic requirements for a successful transfer. Wayfinding choremes are abstract mental concepts of turning action which are accessible as graphical externalisation integrated into route maps. These wayfinding choremes maps emphasis the turning action along the route by displaying the angular information as prototypes of 45° or 90°. This schematisation technique enhances wayfinding performance by supporting the matching processes between the map representation and the internal mental representation of the user. I embed the concept of wayfinding choremes into a virtual environment and present a study to test if the transferred schematisation technique also enhance the wayfinding performance. The empirical investigations present a successful transfer of the concept of the wayfinding choremes. Depending on the complexity of the route the embedded schematization enhance the wayfinding performance of participants who try to follow a route from memory. Participants who trained and recall the route in a schematised virtual environment make fewer errors than the participants of the unmodified virtual world. This thesis sets an example of the close research circle of cognitive behavioural studies to representation-theoretical considerations to applications of wayfinding assistance and their evaluations back to new conclusions in cognitive science. It contributes an interdisciplinary comprehensive inspection of the interplay of environmental factors and mental processes on the example of angular information and mental distortion of this information

Taking off to the Third Dimension, Schematization of Virtual Environments

Virtual environments are increasingly popular in different areas in both research and industry. However, interaction with these environments is challenging, posing a variety of difficulties to human users. In this paper, we explore how well known principles of abstraction and information reduction for 2D spatial representations, which we term schematization, can be transferred to the 3D representations of virtual environments in order to ease interaction and to increase their utility

Wayfinding with Maps and Verbal Directions

This experiment investigated the role of the source of information as well as the route complexity for wayfinding performance and wayfinding knowledge acquired. Participants had to find a complex and a simple route in an unknown city with figural instructions (map) and verbal instructions (directions). The participants reported transforming the map into verbal directions; therefore no general difference between the instructions was found. On oblique intersections which were difficult to code verbally participants recalling the map tended to perform better but built up worse route knowledge. Figural information from the map was only used for wayfinding or pointing if these tasks could not be solved otherwise

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

On the assessment of landmark salience for human navigation

In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for assessing the salience of landmarks for navigation. Landmark salience is derived as a result of the observer's point of view, both physical and cognitive, the surrounding environment, and the objects contained therein. This is in contrast to the currently held view that salience is an inherent property of some spatial feature. Salience, in our approach, is expressed as a three-valued Saliency Vector. The components that determine this vector are Perceptual Salience, which defines the exogenous (or passive) potential of an object or region for acquisition of visual attention, Cognitive Salience, which is an endogenous (or active) mode of orienting attention, triggered by informative cues providing advance information about the target location, and Contextual Salience, which is tightly coupled to modality and task to be performed. This separation between voluntary and involuntary direction of visual attention in dependence of the context allows defining a framework that accounts for the interaction between observer, environment, and landmark. We identify the low-level factors that contribute to each type of salience and suggest a probabilistic approach for their integration. Finally, we discuss the implications, consider restrictions, and explore the scope of the framewor

Familiarity-dependent computational modelling of indoor landmark selection for route communication: a ranking approach

Landmarks play key roles in human wayfinding and mobile navigation systems. Existing computational landmark selection models mainly focus on outdoor environments, and aim to identify suitable landmarks for guiding users who are unfamiliar with a particular environment, and fail to consider familiar users. This study proposes a familiarity-dependent computational method for selecting suitable landmarks for communicating with familiar and unfamiliar users in indoor environments. A series of salience measures are proposed to quantify the characteristics of each indoor landmark candidate, which are then combined in two LambdaMART-based learning-to-rank models for selecting landmarks for familiar and unfamiliar users, respectively. The evaluation with labelled landmark preference data by human participants shows that people’s familiarity with environments matters in the computational modelling of indoor landmark selection for guiding them. The proposed models outperform state-of-the-art models, and achieve hit rates of 0.737 and 0.786 for familiar and unfamiliar users, respectively. Furthermore, semantic relevance of a landmark candidate is the most important measure for the familiar model, while visual intensity is most informative for the unfamiliar model. This study enables the development of human-centered indoor navigation systems that provide familiarity-adaptive landmark-based navigation guidance

User experience of architectural detailing in virtual urban environment

Architecture and urban design disciplines very much adhere to the use of representations as a tool to aid decision making process. As it is almost impossible to replicate environments in full-scale, both physical and digital representations are therefore restricted by the notions of scale and level of details. These notions are now challenged by the emergence of virtual reality (VR) technology, which allows architects to work with full-scale virtual environments (VEs). However, the taxonomy of architectural representations in VR is not properly defined as discussions in academia are mostly concerned about creating realistic impressions of space, rather than the operational side of different architectural detailing. Thus, in recognizing the operational dimensions of VEs in VR, it is vital to examine the influence of different architectural detailing on the legibility of VEs. This study aimed to suggest a guideline for users’ experience of architectural detailing in a VE for a large-scale urban simulation. This study was executed as an experimental simulation study. In a total of N=96 respondents were divided into four different treatments with n=24 respondents in each VE with a unique level of architectural detailing. They answered the questionnaire surveys and drew cognitive maps after completed navigating within the VEs using VR. Analysis methods used were primarily of content analysis, Kruskal-Wallis H test, and one-way ANOVA. The first analysis phase was environment-specific and the second phase was route and point-specific. In the third phase, the findings from previous phases were triangulated. The most and the least legible VEs were established as per different abilities of interpreting VEs. The operational dimensions of the VEs were established based on the deconstructed architectural detail components namely ‘geometric extrusion’ and ‘distinction’ as the factors influencing legibility of VEs. The operational dimensions of each VE were synthesized based on various criteria derived from the abilities of interpreting VEs. Based on the statistically significant results, the criteria were reduced to ‘understanding VE’ and ‘recalling VE’, in that order. In conclusion, there are some influences of architectural detailing on legibility but only in regards to the two criteria. The operational dimensions were also established for each criterion, which was learned from the cognitive knowledge data. Firstly, is for tasks within one viewpoint. Secondly, is for linear navigation and lastly is for full-fledged virtual exploration. This thesis also proposed two main guidelines for the user experience of architectural detailing in urban VE to be used by architects and users in the associated domain

On the assessment of landmark salience for human navigation

In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for assessing the salience of landmarks for navigation. Landmark salience is derived as a result of the observer’s point of view, both physical and cognitive, the surrounding environment, and the objects contained therein. This is in contrast to the currently held view that salience is an inherent property of some spatial feature. Salience, in our approach, is expressed as a three-valued Saliency Vector. The components that determine this vector are Perceptual Salience, which defines the exogenous (or passive) potential of an object or region for acquisition of visual attention, Cognitive Salience, which is an endogenous (or active) mode of orienting attention, triggered by informative cues providing advance information about the target location, and Contextual Salience, which is tightly coupled to modality and task to be performed. This separation between voluntary and involuntary direction of visual attention in dependence of the context allows defining a framework that accounts for the interaction between observer, environment, and landmark. We identify the low-level factors that contribute to each type of salience and suggest a probabilistic approach for their integration. Finally, we discuss the implications, consider restrictions, and explore the scope of the framework