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Schematic maps are effective tools for representing information about the physical environment; they depict specific information in an abstract way. This study concentrates on spatial aspects of the physical environment such as branching points and connecting roads, which play a paramount role in the schematization of wayfinding maps. Representativ...
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Context 1
... major difficulty is that the combination of these two variables leads to innumerable examples that can be found in the real environment. In order to overcome this problem, Casakin et al. (2000) simplified the large number of branching points by proposing a taxonomy (Figure 2). This taxonomy is based on a classification of the main classes of branching points on the basis of qualitative angles. ...
Context 2
... the test condition, a task sheet containing procedural instructions and descriptions of a warm-up task, and the main task were given to subjects. They were provided with a map- like depiction of the Hamburg Volksparkstadion area, and required to use the available taxonomy of 3 and 4 branching points (Figure 2). The map contained information on roads and urban components such as the stadium, a cemetery, parks and parking lots. ...
Citations
... In a mathematics classroom, wayfinding can be a spatial problem-solving task (Casakin et al., 2000). Solving the task and reaching the desired destination is dependent on human and environmental factors (Farr et al., 2012). ...
In this paper we discuss ongoing challenges for Māori-medium initial teacher education in addressing conceptual, linguistic and pedagogical tensions that impact on developing mathematics education programmes. These include the small pool of applicants with the necessary linguistic and cultural knowledge required to teach in Māori-medium settings. Māori-medium schooling has the dual goals of providing a learning environment where Māori ways of knowing and being are taken for granted and students have access to international notions of academic success. However, many Māori-medium initial teaching education applicants have learnt mathematics in English and have had varying levels of access to Māori practices that could be taught alongside mathematics. To address these challenges, we utilise the cultural symmetry model to guide the design and delivery of Māori-medium initial teacher education tasks using wayfinding. Thereby illuminating Māori practices and school mathematics curriculum simultaneously.
... Several factors impact the accuracy of mental maps and thus the success of the wayfinding process. These factors include both the environmental factors (characteristics of the environment) and personal factors (characteristics of the individual) [6], [7]. ...
... This definition led De Jesus [2] to deduce that wayfinding is, in its essence, a matter of spatial orientation. This concept has been evolving: wayfinding was then regarded as the process of navigating a space with an aim to reach a specific destination [3]; at the present time, a widely accepted and more specific definition of wayfinding can be put together as the process in which a person identifies his current relative spatial location and the knowledge of how he can move through the space towards the desired destination as quickly and efficiently as possible [4]. However, the way in which wayfinding can be defined is highly dependent upon the field in which an investigation is carried out and the setting from which the definition is derived [5]. ...
Wayfinding is considered to be one of the most demanding challenges to be performed by hospitals’ users. Wayfinding has been an interest among researchers from different fields, such as architecture, interior design, cognitive psychology, and facilities management, to name a few. Previous scholars have highlighted the need for a holistic framework taking into consideration both user and environmental factors. A narrative review of the literature was carried out to understand the full extent of the issue and address the ever-increasing demand for a holistic assessment framework. This article attempts to address the underlying gap by proposing a comprehensive framework that takes into account both facets of the issue through a narrative review of the literature to some of the most prominent research attempts to address the problem of wayfinding in complex healthcare settings. Furthermore, the proposed framework can assist both researchers and practicing professionals by providing a comprehensive understanding of the issue of complex wayfinding as well as of the variables to be investigated in the assessment process.
... Landmarks are crucial reference information when people are deciding the route direction [11]. Landmarks provide essential information at an intersection where direction change is required to continue the route, and help to create a visual model of key parts of the environment [12][13][14]. Golledge [15] argued that a landmark has two functions. First, it plays the role of an anchor, namely serving as a point that connects different regions in an environment. ...
... Second, it is used as an auxiliary tool for wayfinding, and wayfinders can use landmarks as a point of reference for direction identification and route decision. Successful spatial positioning occurs when a person′s brain can form an environmental cognition map to determine his or her location [14]. Once this information is available, the shortest and most efficient route from his or her current location to the desired destination can be quickly identified [16,17]. ...
Useful information can be provided by 2.5D maps that can take advantage of the additional dimension. However, aside from stereoscopic landmarks, optimal methods for presenting other essential information is unclear. Two experiments were conducted to explore how the presentation of 2.5D maps can effectively increase wayfinding performance. First, analysis was performed to understand the effects of 2.5D maps on wayfinding behavior and map reading. Then, a 2.5D map design was proposed and verified to optimize the 2.5D map presentation of urban environments. The results showed that compared with users of low view angle maps, those using high view angle maps orientated more easily with elements of the map during wayfinding tasks. High view angle maps allowed superior performance, and including transparency and lines improved wayfinding performance. The participants using maps that were opaque and with lines exhibited the most confusion and hesitation. The participants who used maps that were transparent and had lines exhibited the least confusion and hesitation. Highlighting buildings at intersections can help map users use the intersections as references and increase their intuitive spatial ability.
... Users' cognitive errors could be reduced by lowering the number of nodes between routes, which was also advantageous for grasping the transfers and relative location of the route taken. As we knew, the more clearly we relate schematic maps to the critical elements of the environment represented, the more easily users can find an orientation solution [24]. Brewer [25] indicated that the internal elements of the map should maintain a linear balance. ...
Route maps, common in public transportation systems, refer to thematic maps drawn according to topological concepts. To simplify complex route information, a transport network is represented using primary graphic elements. First used in 1931 with topological concepts, the octilinear design has influenced the compositions of traffic route maps to this day. The current study involved cognitive mapping research on a representative route map in Taiwan: the Metro Taipei Route Map. Through two task experiments, this study analyzed users’ cognitive behavior when using the route map and alternative route map representations. The results indicated that the route map composed of all curves resulted in higher user performance than maps using a hybrid system and the conventional octilinear system. The route map based on the hybrid system, which included a route in the shape of a perfect circle, was highly evaluated and subjectively preferred by the users. Thus, the addition of appropriate curves in route maps is beneficial for improving usability, cognitive memory, and subjective evaluation. Finally, adding travel time information to a route map effectively enhances users’ decision-making during route planning.
... Kitchin and Blades [10] proposed three cognitive map architectures for users to confirm their location on cognitive maps, that is (1) egocentric: the viewer's own position as the center point; (2) fixed: a fixed point as a reference point; and (3) coordinate: position of an element determined using an abstract coordinate system. People make decisions based on information about environmental characteristics, and these decisions must be translated into actions to reach their destination [11]. Understanding of the relationship between the environment and cognitive maps generated by individual differences can serve as a basis for designing maps. ...
... Landmarks are crucial reference information when people are deciding the route direction [18]. Landmarks provide essential information at an intersection where direction change is required to continue the route, and help to create a visual model of key parts of the environment [9][10][11]. Significant landmarks must correspond to their environment's attributes (e.g., color and texture), states (e.g., church or commercial building), or spatial location relative to other objects in the environment (e.g., town center) [12]. ...
... Second, it is used as an auxiliary tool for wayfinding, and wayfinders can use landmarks as a point of reference for direction identification and route decision. Successful spatial positioning occurs when a person's brain can form an environmental cognition map to determine his or her location [11]. Once this information is available, the shortest and most efficient route from his or her current location to the desired destination can be quickly identified [20,21]. ...
Passengers were unsatisfied with the navigation signs in Taipei station based on the Report on the Taiwan Railway Passenger Survey. This study conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 involved 14 participants using the present Taipei Main Station floor map to wayfinding, plan routes, and provide route descriptions for four specified destinations in the station. All participants were requested to recall the route that had just been taken and draw a cognitive map. In Experiment 2, 14 other participants were asked to perform the same tasks as Experiment 1 but with the new map. This study’s results showed that the codes used by the participants in Experiment 1 revealed the differences in walking route distance and number of turns. Escalators and stairs that connected floors were often used as reference landmarks for wayfinding. In Experiment 2, the overall wayfinding performance of the participants was improved by using the new map. The wayfinding time was reduced and the time spent in wayfinding among users was more uniform, and their route planning strategies used became consistent. The new map that facilitates consistent action strategies among users and corresponds perfectly to the actual environment is able to create useful spatial knowledge for users.
... It is currently unclear whether a flexible combination of graph-and map-like representations exists in non-spatial domains. tend to distort the angles between path segments in memory toward 90°in a way that can create impossible configurations [13][14][15][16]. Distance and direction estimates between locations are warped by the number of turns in the paths connecting them [15,[17][18][19][20][21], and can differ between forward and backward path directions [19,[21][22][23][24][25]. ...
... Distance and direction estimates between locations are warped by the number of turns in the paths connecting them [15,[17][18][19][20][21], and can differ between forward and backward path directions [19,[21][22][23][24][25]. Moreover, people often maintain only a very schematic and distorted representation of their environment [14,16,26,27], and may be unable to point in the direction of unseen landmarks even after years of experience [28]. Nevertheless, people are often able to confidently and accurately navigate and take novel shortcuts even when they do not possess a full metric mapping of the environment [26,29]. ...
Humans and animals use mental representations of the spatial structure of the world to navigate. The classical view is that these representations take the form of Euclidean cognitive maps, but alternative theories suggest that they are cognitive graphs consisting of locations connected by paths. We review evidence suggesting that both map-like and graph-like representations exist in the mind/brain that rely on partially overlapping neural systems. Maps and graphs can operate simultaneously or separately, and they may be applied to both spatial and nonspatial knowledge. By providing structural frameworks for complex information, cognitive maps and cognitive graphs may provide fundamental organizing schemata that allow us to navigate in physical, social, and conceptual spaces.
... The orientation instructions map was designed as an overview-like, schematic representation of a route by selecting information assumed to be important for understanding the structure of the environment. This goes along with findings of Casakin, Barkowsky, Klippel, and Freksa (2000), who showed that schematic maps support orientation precisely because they only visualize specific information about the environment. The selection of relevant elements and the presentation of underlying structures makes schematic maps an effective wayfinding aid (Freksa, 1999). ...
Turn-by-turn instructions of navigation systems do not fully correspond to the way in which people typically communicate spatial information to each other. Previous research demonstrated that the acquisition of survey knowledge from such instructions is challenging. In the present study we investigate whether it is possible to create wayfinding instructions that communicate survey information, without sacrificing the recall of route information. We explore whether the presentation of survey information can be easily mentally integrated with route information. To this end, we compared three different types of wayfinding instructions: turn-by-turn instructions, which include streets and metric distances; spatial chunking instructions which include local route information such as landmarks located at decision points and present instructions in cognitively logical chunks; and our orientation instructions, which combine local and global information of the route and integrate it within the environment’s context. Instructions were presented in verbal and visual modes. Results showed that it is possible to improve the recall of survey information without sacrificing the recall of route-specific elements: visual orientation instructions resulted in significantly higher landmark recall rates, significantly higher quality sketch maps, and significantly more "survey-like" sketch map types. In the verbal mode, differences between orientation instructions and spatial chunking instructions were less clear, but the performance of both was better, compared to turn-by-turn instructions. These results contribute to the ongoing discussion on the potential reasons for the navigation systems’ detrimental effect on spatial learning and demonstrate that people can learn both types of knowledge if the presentation style supports it. The overall amount of acquired knowledge could be improved through orientation instructions. Our study has practical implications for the future design of navigation systems.
... In particular, nodes between lines or transports modes are often not well represented and can be interpreted wrongly (Guo, 2011). Accordingly, most research in the area focused on design principles to improve the understanding of transportation network maps (Casakin et al., 2000;Freksa, 1999). ...
Planning routes using transportation network maps is a common task that has received little attention in the literature. Here, we present a novel eye-tracking paradigm to investigate psychological processes and mechanisms involved in such a route planning. In the experiment, participants were first presented with an origin and destination pair before we presented them with fictitious public transportation maps. Their task was to find the connecting route that required the minimum number of transfers. Based on participants’ gaze behaviour, each trial was split into two phases: (1) the search for origin and destination phase, i.e., the initial phase of the trial until participants gazed at both origin and destination at least once and (2) the route planning and selection phase. Comparisons of other eye-tracking measures between these phases and the time to complete them, which depended on the complexity of the planning task, suggest that these two phases are indeed distinct and supported by different cognitive processes. For example, participants spent more time attending the centre of the map during the initial search phase, before directing their attention to connecting stations, where transitions between lines were possible. Our results provide novel insights into the psychological processes involved in route planning from maps. The findings are discussed in relation to the current theories of route planning.
... Successful wayfinding is based on a good decision-making process that relies on information represented by different means and interpreted in people's minds under the influence of several factors: environmental, spatial, cultural, biological, etc. (Casakin et al., 2000). ...
The research aims to understand the relationship between the popularity and attractiveness of commercial buildings, shopping malls and any relationship with visitor satisfaction. This would assist in designing new malls or commercial buildings, predict their degree of popularity, and help achieve both higher revenue resulting from increasing the number of visitors and their satisfaction, comfort and enjoyment of the space. This study will focus on the relationship between shopping mall popularity and wayfinding. Planned and unplanned visits to some specific areas inside the malls will be considered. These areas are: 1- Facilities: prayer rooms, and washrooms, etc.; 2- The largest areas in size and often with the highest number of visitors: food courts, cinemas, play areas; and 3- ATM machines. The objective of this paper is to verify three hypotheses: 1. The popularity of a mall is positively related to visitor satisfaction with wayfinding in the mall; 2. The popularity of a mall is positively related to visitor satisfaction with the location of facilities in the mall; 3. The location of facilities in a mall is positively related to visitor satisfaction with wayfinding in the mall. Surveys were conducted in the city of Abu Dhabi and the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique was used to verify these hypotheses.
