Abstract
To effectively wayfind through unfamiliar buildings, humans infer their relative position to target locations not only by interpreting geometric layouts, especially length of line of sight, but also by using background knowledge to evaluate landmarks with respect to their probable spatial relation to a target. Questionnaire results revealed that participants have consistent background knowledge about the relative position of target locations. Landmarks were rated significantly differently with respect to their spatial relation to targets. In addition, results from a forced-choice task comparing snapshots of a virtual environment revealed that background knowledge influenced wayfinding decisions. We suggest that landmarks are interpreted semantically with respect to their function and spatial relation to the target location and thereby influence wayfinding decisions. This indicates that background knowledge plays a role in wayfinding.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Philipp Vath and André Guenther for programming, Talita Telma for collecting data, and Dan Montello for comments and revisions. Funding by the DFG (SFB/TR8 Spatial Cognition) is gratefully acknowledged.
Conflict of interest
This supplement was not sponsored by outside commercial interests. It was funded entirely by ECONA, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185 Roma, Italy.
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Frankenstein, J., Brüssow, S., Ruzzoli, F. et al. The language of landmarks: the role of background knowledge in indoor wayfinding. Cogn Process 13 (Suppl 1), 165–170 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-012-0482-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-012-0482-8