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

Determining Factors that Affect Farming in the Albanian Milk Sector

In Albania, the agricultural sector is dominated to almost 60% by subsistence farming. Nevertheless, agriculture is one of the most important sectors of the economy, as it contributes to nearly 1/2 of employment in Albania and 1/5 to the GDP (ILO - International Labour Organisation, 2018).The government has applied different policies and instruments in collaboration with foreign associations (GIZ, FAO) to improve and further develop this sector by inviting farmers in new initiatives.Being part of an innovative organisation or being an innovative actor in terms of the role you play and functions you carry out in the value chain, are still considered as impasse by the majority of farmers in Albania. As a result, innovation and risk-taking are two factors that are contrary but strongly related to each other when it comes to the behaviour of Albanian farmers

Fixation-related potentials during mobile map assisted navigation in the real world: The effect of landmark visualization style

An often-proposed enhancement for mobile maps to aid assisted navigation is the presentation of landmark information, yet understanding of the manner in which they should be displayed is limited. In this study, we investigated whether the visualization of landmarks as 3D map symbols with either an abstract or realistic style influenced the subsequent processing of those landmarks during route navigation. We utilized a real-world mobile electroencephalography approach to this question by combining several tools developed to overcome the challenges typically encountered in real-world neuroscience research. We coregistered eye-movement and EEG recordings from 45 participants as they navigated through a real-world environment using a mobile map. Analyses of fixation event-related potentials revealed that the amplitude of the parietal P200 component was enhanced when participants fixated landmarks in the real world that were visualized on the mobile map in a realistic style, and that frontal P200 latencies were prolonged for landmarks depicted in either a realistic or abstract style compared with features of the environment that were not presented on the map, but only for the male participants. In contrast, we did not observe any significant effects of landmark visualization style on visual P1-N1 peaks or the parietal late positive component. Overall, the findings indicate that the cognitive matching process between landmarks seen in the environment and those previously seen on a map is facilitated by more realistic map display, while low-level perceptual processing of landmarks and recall of associated information are unaffected by map visualization style

The Short-Term Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Eating Habits and Dietary Changes Case of Tirana, Albania

Covid-19, one of the biggest crises that humanity has faced since WW2, has affected the normal life drastically and irreversibly. The rapid spread of the virus, radically changed every aspect of life, starting from the daily routine, the way of thinking and behaving, shopping habits and obviously eating habits and diets. This study aims to assess and analyze the short-term impact of quarantine on eating habits and food choices of citizens of Tirana, Albania, identifying and comparing the differences of quantity and quality of the main food products consumed during and after the lockdown. The research methodology used in this study is descriptive analysis. The selected area for the study is the city of Tirana, and the survey is conducted online due to the strict government regulations regarding social distancing and limited travelling after the Covid-19 outbreak. A total number of 325 respondents are included in the study. Based on the survey, 66.5% of the respondent’s claimed that their diet was affected by the quarantine, while 33.5% have not experienced any major changes in their diets during the pandemic period. Staying at home has led 57% of them to consume all the main meals, and about 67.4% of the respondents claimed to have consumed more snacks than usually. The main products taken into study are bread, dairy, meat, fruits, vegetables, sweets, carbonated drinks, coffee, alcohol and water. Almost 50% of the respondents from a total of 325 confirmed that they consumed more bread, dairy products, meat, sweets and vegetables during the lockdown, than before. Their preferable foods were white bread, milk, chicken, homemade baked sweets and tomatoes. More than 70% claimed to have consumed more fruits, especially oranges, and more coffee and water. On the other hand, almost 70% of the respondents were drinking less alcohol and carbonated drinks during lockdown than before

The Effect of Abstract vs. Realistic 3D Visualization on Landmark and Route Knowledge Acquisition

Even though humans perform it daily, navigation is a cognitively challenging process. Landmarks have been shown to facilitate navigation by scaffolding humans’ mental representation of space. However, how landmarks can be effectively communicated to pedestrians to support spatial learning of the traversed environment remains an open question. Therefore, we assessed how the visualization of landmarks on a mobile map (i.e., abstract 3D vs. realistic 3D symbols) influences participants’ spatial learning, visual attention allocation, and cognitive load during an outdoor map-assisted navigation task. We report initial results on how exposing pedestrians to different landmark visualization styles on mobile maps while navigating along a given route in an urban environment can have differing effects on how they remember landmarks and routes. Specifically, we find that navigators better remember landmarks visualized as 3D realistic-looking symbols compared to 3D abstract landmark symbols on the mobile map. The pattern of results shows that displaying realistic 3D landmark symbols at intersections potentially helps participants to remember route directions better than with landmarks depicted as abstract 3D symbols. The presented methodological approach contributes ecologically valid insights to further understand how the design of landmarks on mobile maps could support wayfinders' spatial learning during map-assisted navigation

Landmark Sequence Learning from Real-World Route Navigation and the Impact of Navigation Aid Visualisation Style

Primacy and recency features of serial memory are a hallmark of typical memory functions that have been observed for a wide array of tasks. Recently, the ubiquity of this serial position effect has been supported for objects learned during navigation, with canonical serial position functions observed for sequence memory of landmarks that were encountered along a route during a highly controlled virtual navigation task. In the present study, we extended those findings to a real-world navigation task in which participants actively walked a route through a city whilst using a navigation aid featuring either realistic or abstract landmark visualisation styles. Analyses of serial position functions (i.e., absolute sequence knowledge) and sequence lags (i.e., relative sequence knowledge) yielded similar profiles to those observed in a lab based virtual navigation task from previous work and non-spatial list learning studies. There were strong primacy effects for serial position memory in both conditions; recency effects only in the realistic visualisation condition; a non-uniform distribution of item-lags peaking at lag +1; and an overall bias towards positive lags for both visualisation conditions. The findings demonstrate that benchmark serial position memory effects can be observed in uncontrolled, real-world behaviour. In a navigation context, the results support the notion that general memory mechanisms are involved in spatial learning, and that landmark sequence knowledge is a feature of spatial knowledge which is affected by navigation aids

Some alternatives of improvement the cow milk production efficiency in Albania (cash flow analysis)

Any major new capital investment, such as the purchase of land, machinery, buildings or animals, can have a large effect on cash flows, particulary if additonal capital is borrrowed to finance the purchase. Borrowed capital requires principial and interest payments. The questions to answer before making the new investment is: Will the investment generate enough additional cash income to meet its additional cash requirments? In other words, is the investment financially feasible, as oposed to economically profitable? Farms with high production efficiency are more successful due to three factors. High levels of production result: (1) low cost per unit of output, (2) with an increase in the effective size of the farm business, and (3) with an increased effectiveness of labor and machinery (Ronald D, Kay, farm management 1994). The high level of production provides a simple and effective method of increasing farm size. Farms with high agricultural productivity and high levels of productivity per head resulting in a large volume of business compared with farms with the same size but with lower production levels. This additional business volume is the result of working more effectively, without increasing the surface of the land or the size of the activities. The main methods of raising the level of productivity of livestock production are: i) selection and improvement of breed; ii) choice of a balanced food ration in relation to the level of production, iii) sheltering conditions and health care, iv) appropriate and timely nutrition and; v) a good combination between use of pasture and concentrated food