The effects of different verbal route instructions on spatial orientation

Abstract

Providing cognitively effective wayfinding instructions is an ongoing research agenda. In addition to providing instructions that are easy to follow, work has started to address instructions that can potentially facilitate spatial orientation and cognitive mapping. In this study, we use a type of verbal instructions that consists of not only landmarks at decision points but also additional landmarks along a route or in distance that are considered crucial for maintaining spatial orientation. The orientation-based route instructions are compared with machine-generated as well as skeletal instructions. Eleven participants were randomly assigned to use one of these three types of instructions to mentally walk a route that they are unfamiliar with and then performed a set of tasks. Preliminary results show that participants using the orientation instructions made fewest errors in their performance of direction estimation. Results from their drawn sketch maps also show more accuracy in global and local orientation. This type of instructions, not surprisingly, does not contribute to accurate estimation of distance. The machine-generated instructions which include distance information, however, are not found contributing to the best estimation of distance. This study supports the potentials of designing wayfinding instructions to facilitate spatial cognition. It also calls the necessity for more comprehensive studies on the effects of instructions on various aspects of wayfinding behaviors, as well as on the automatic generation of orientation-based instructions.