Ease Wayfinding

Miola and colleagues contribute to our understanding of the relationship between increased use of GPS systems and wayfinding.  The investigators conducted a literature review and meta-analysis and found “negative associations between GPS use and performance in environmental knowledge and self-reported sense of direction measures and a positive association with wayfinding. . . . results revealed a negative effect of GPS use on environmental knowledge . . .  and sense of direction . . . and a positive yet not significant effect on wayfinding.”

Dommes and associates probed the usefulness of  types of landmarks for wayfinding.  Their study participants “navigated a virtual environment using a joystick. They were guided with a map or with GPS-like instructions, including either only visually or both visually and cognitively salient landmarks. . . . results showed that the integration of visually and cognitively salient landmarks in a map or in GPS-like instructions improved the construction of landmark and route knowledge. . . . Perceptual saliency is defined as the . . . potential of an object to grab attention. It . . .

Fernandez-Velasco and Spiers studied wayfinding in a range of cultures, looking for insights handy universally.  They report that “Studies of navigation in traditional cultures are reviewed. . . . Traditional navigation methods often rely on deep understanding of patterns in the environment combined with physical artefacts that aid learning and dissemination of knowledge. . . . Research on human navigation by psychologists and neuroscientists has come mainly from a limited range of environments and participants inhabiting western countries.

Yavuz and colleagues identified a link between playing video games and the ability to successfully navigate between one place and another.  They share that they “investigated the effect of video game experience and reliance on GPS on navigation ability using the mobile app Sea Hero Quest, which has been shown to predict real-world wayfinding performance. . . . [statistical analyses] found no significant association between reliance on GPS and wayfinding performance. There was a significant association between weekly hours of video gaming and wayfinding performance. . . .

Pullano and colleagues assessed how navigating through a space is influenced by emotional bonds to it. They share that “We propose that the emotional bond with a place could have a positive effect only in retrieving the visual features of navigational objects (i.e., landmarks).”