The relative benefit of reliable heading updates on urban wayfinding
Project for Master Degree of Applied Science (Geographic Information Systems) at The University of Melbourne
by Wilfred Waters, 2010
by Wilfred Waters, 2010
Abstract
Prior research about wayfinding has found that females tend to employ a single strategy based on landmarks, where males are more versatile, using a dual strategy of landmarks and global orientation information such as cardinal directions (Lawton, 2010). It was proposed that this difference occurs due to males’ better sense of direction, which would deliver more trustworthy indications of current heading. Since males’ versatility has often been linked with better navigation performance (for example Sandstrom, Kaufman, & Huettel, 1998; Saucier et al., 2002) this study sought to contribute to the growing body of literature on methods of training to increase sense of direction (such as Hund and Minarik, 2006; Hund & Nazarczuk, 2009). An experimental procedure was used to investigate the possibility that the provision of reliable cardinal direction heading updates to participants would lead to a dual strategy for orientation in those that usually use a single strategy based on landmarks. This was done in an urban navigation context, with the main dependent variable being level of recall for route structure. Using the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction Scale, the study revealed that males had a higher self-reported sense of direction than females. Additionally, no sex differences in performance were found on the route structure recall tasks. Rather than being due to females’ use of a dual wayfinding strategy, however, this was interpreted as an artefact of the use of a video in the procedure, which involved watching someone else navigating along a route. This is supported by another finding, that conditions containing cardinal directions or landmark spatial references did not produce higher route structure recall than the control condition. Since the procedure did not require participants to navigate through a real, or virtual, environment, it may not have been perceived as a disorientation threat. Due to this, they may not have employed wayfinding strategies, accounting for the poor influence of the spatial reference conditions and the lack of sex difference. The study is therefore viewed as an ideal candidate for replication by future investigators, who may wish to compare performance using a task where participants are required to deploy wayfinding strategies.
KEYWORDS: wayfinding strategies, sense of direction, cardinal directions, navigation, sex differences
The thesis can be downloaded here (when the Unimelb repository webpage starts working again) or here.
The procedure for this project was hosted on this website. It can still be accessed here.
KEYWORDS: wayfinding strategies, sense of direction, cardinal directions, navigation, sex differences
The thesis can be downloaded here (when the Unimelb repository webpage starts working again) or here.
The procedure for this project was hosted on this website. It can still be accessed here.
Wordle of my thesis:
