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3 Wayfinding and Landmarks
To understand the process of pedestrian wayfinding, spatial cognition, and cognitive mapping, we must embark on interdisciplinary research in cognitive psychology.
3.1 HUMAN WAYFINDING
Human movement is often divided into two categories: navigation and wayfinding. Navigation is described as the “processing of spatial information regarding position and rate of travel between identifiable origins and destinations summarized as a course to be followed” (Golledge, 1999), and wayfinding is the process of “selecting path segments from an existing network and linking them as one travels along a specific path” (Golledge, 1999). The selected path can vary based on the purpose of the trip and its requirements such as travel speed and efficiency. Wayfinding as a process is manifold, requiring them to know the origin and seek a possibly unknown destination. In addition, it requires the person to estimate turn angles in the correct sequence, remember how long route segments are, determine the direction of one’s movement along a segment, maintain one’s orientation, estimate one’s location based on landmarks, and differentiate between cues along or off the route (Golledge, 2000).
Allen (1999) introduced a taxonomy for wayfinding tasks (and the means for accomplishing them) with the following main categories:
a) Traveling, where the goal is to reach a familiar destination,
b) Exploratory traveling with no goal, where the traveler eventually returns to a familiar point of origin, and
c) Traveling with the goal of reaching a novel destination.
The most used method of wayfinding is travel between common locations, for example, commuting from home to work and vice versa. Another common task is explorative traveling, which happens especially in scenarios where the person has moved to another location or when one visits a new environment, for example, on vacation. Wayfinding to novel destinations is often supported by symbolic spatial information that is then communicated to the wayfinder via different media (paper maps, verbal directions, wayfinding applications such as Google Maps, etc.). This type of wayfinding has also been observed in nonhumans, for example, in honey bees, who provide spatial information (e.g., in migration scenarios) via a specific dance.
Wayfinding is an activity that can be “observed and recorded as a trace of sensory motor actions through an environment. This trace is called the route”
(Golledge, 1999). The selected route results from a travel plan, which comprises route segments and turns that lead the wayfinder to his or her destination (Golledge, 2000). This travel plan is determined by the criteria of the path selection (i.e., by the motivation of the traveler), such as the shortest distance, the shortest time, or the scenic nature of the path (see Table 2 for route selection criteria). These travel plans can also be organized by their legibility or the ease with which the route can become known to the person.
Wayfinding takes place in large-scale environments (Montello, 1993), such as cities and buildings. This means that the traveler cannot perceive the route from a single viewpoint and therefore must travel through the space to experience them (Nothegger, Winter and Raubal, 2004). To navigate these landscapes, people must utilize their spatial and cognitive abilities. This includes the person’s capability to process perceptions and information, previous knowledge, and motor functions (Allen, 1999). The cognitive requirements of wayfinding also depend on the task, meaning that wayfinding through a cityscape uses a different set of cognitive abilities than wayfinding inside a building (Nothegger, Winter and Raubal, 2004).
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21 Shortest leg first Minimizing effort
Fewest turns Minimizing actual or perceived cost
Fewest lights or stop signs Minimizing the number of intermodal transfers Fewest obstacles or obstructions Fastest route
Variety of seeking behaviors Least hazardous in terms of known accidents Minimizing negative
externalities Less likely to be patrolled by authorities
Avoiding congestion Minimizing the number of segments in a chosen route
Avoiding detours Minimizing the number of curved segments Table 2. Types of Route Selection Criteria (Golledge, 1999)
There are various wayfinding strategies used by humans (and other animals), including:
Oriented search
Following a marked trail
Piloting (moving from landmark to landmark)
Habitual locomotion
Path integration
Referring to a cognitive map (Allen, 1999)
An oriented search is a simple way of reaching a destination in which the wayfinder first orients himself or herself according to a source of information and then searches until the destination is reached. This wayfinding method is utilized by many species. Even though some species rely on distal visual (sonar, lunar, and stellar), tactile (wind and water currents), geomagnetic, and olfactory information, humans rely most heavily on visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive information (Allen, 1999).
An oriented search is most useful in the exploratory travel of short distances where the wayfinder finally returns to a familiar point of origin. Following a marked trail is a rather commonly used method of wayfinding and it is often found, for example, in hospitals or hiking trails. Marked trails are designed to minimize uncertainty and, therefore, to reduce the cognitive demands of the wayfinder. The problem with marked trails is that, when multiple instances are located in one segment (e.g., highway interchanges), the cognitive demands of the wayfinder increase (Allen, 1999). They are also relatively expensive to construct.
Longest leg first Maximizing aesthetics
Piloting from landmark to landmark is a common method of wayfinding for many species. In landmark-based piloting, the wayfinder relies solely on sequential knowledge, meaning that a landmark is associated with only two types of information—the direction and the distance to the next landmark on the route. This type of wayfinding is an efficient way of traveling to familiar or novel destinations when in a well-known environment, and it is usually the standard method of wayfinding in an unfamiliar environment.
Wayfinding instructions based on piloting consist of condition-action lists.
The success with this method relies heavily on the recognition of landmarks.
Piloting is also a common technique in explorative wayfinding (Allen, 1999).
Habitual locomotion is a wayfinding method that is only utilized with familiar locations. After repetition, the wayfinder gets increasingly experienced with specific routes, which can lead to automatized locomotion on these routes. In time, the attention to the environment required for traveling the route diminishes. For example, many people returning from work pay little to no attention to the trip that brought them home. Path integration is “orienting by means of external and internal sources of information regarding direction and speed of movement” (Loomis et al., 1999). Path integration depends on the monitoring of one’s own self-movement. Path integration is utilized by other species, including small rodents (Alyan and McNaughton, 1999) and ants, who are extremely adept at it (Graham and Cheng, 2009). The most sophisticated model of wayfinding involves the use of an internal representation of relationships between places referred to as a cognitive map. The following section will explain this concept and expand on the cognitive aspects of wayfinding.
The possible utility of wayfinding methods for divergent wayfinding tasks can be seen in Table 3. Multiple methods can be used for the same wayfinding task, and most means can be used for multiple tasks. Finally, there are more methods for traveling to familiar destinations than exploratory travel, which in turn has more methods than traveling to novel destinations. To put it another way, there is flexibility in solving each type of wayfinding task, but this flexibility is greater when traveling to familiar destinations than in exploratory travel and more in exploratory travel than when traveling to novel destinations. This type of categorization is important when addressing individual differences in wayfinding performance, as one should also consider the nature of the wayfinding task.
Travelers may differ in their wayfinding abilities because they use distinct methods (e.g., path integration versus piloting when returning home from exploratory travel). In addition, they may differ in their ability to assess these methods in their wayfinding (e.g., poor ability to identify landmarks).
Wayfinding experiments are often divided into two categories: those done in closed spaces such as buildings or rooms (Shanon, 1984) and those conducted in open, often large-scale environments such as cityscapes or campuses (publications I and II).
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Wayfinding tasks
Wayfinding means
Travel to familiar destination
Exploratory travel Travel to novel destinations
Oriented search x x x
Following a trail x x x
Piloting x x x
Path integration x x
Habitual locomotion x Referring to a
cognitive map x x x
Table 3. The possible utility of proposed wayfinding methods for various wayfinding tasks (Allen, 1999).
3.2 COGNITIVE ASPECTS OF WAYFINDING