Remembering Routes: Streets and Landmarks (original) (raw)
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Route directions are often given on request in situ, requiring the inquirer to remember the directions. Previous work has shown that landmarks are more memorable than street names. However, in those studies, the names of landmarks were more vivid and distinctive than the street names. In two experiments, we disentangled vividness/distinctiveness from landmark/street. The major factor in memorability of routes was vividness/distinctiveness, with a slight advantage to streets. Route directions were remembered better when either the landmarks, the street names or both were more vivid and distinctive. Those high in mental imagery read the descriptions faster and remembered them better. Thus, vividness in the stimuli and visual imagery in the mind augment constructing and remembering spatial mental models because forming spatial mental models relies in part on spatial structure but also on associative learning, and vividness and visual imagery promote associative learning. The findings have implications for learning in general.
Effect of Landmark Type on Route Memory in Unfamiliar Homogenous Environment
Psychological Studies, 2017
Landmarks are objects that have salience that is either visual, semantic or structural. Recent researches have pointed out observer characteristics that make a landmark salient. These have been termed cognitive salience. This study investigated the effects of two components of cognitive salience, familiarity and degree of recognition, on route memory. The first experiment examined the effect of familiarity of landmark and ease with which it could be recognized (degree of recognition) on remembering a route, while in the second experiment only degree of recognition was varied while holding familiarity constant. Two types of landmarks (text and image) were shown to participants who had to recollect course taken at decision points during wayfinding tasks. Participants were shown navigation videos generated using Squareland Model. The videos had six decision points each having one landmark, and the participants were required to indicate the direction of the turn when the landmarks were shown again. Results showed that pictorial landmarks (high degree of recognition) were better facilitators of route memory than textual landmarks (low degree of recognition). Results also indicated that familiar buildings served as better landmarks than unfamiliar buildings. In the second experiment another level of degree of recognition (medium) was added and compared with high and low levels. Results confirmed the findings of the first experiment with high degree of recognition being the best facilitator followed by medium and low degree of recognition. Our findings lend empirical support to the concept of cognitive salience proposed by Caduff and Timpf (Cogn Process 9:249-267, 2008) and highlight the importance of observer characteristics in determining what constitutes as good landmark.
Where Is It (in the Map)? Recall and Recognition of Spatial Information
Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization, 2017
Findings of empirical studies of spatial memory using maps are direct responses to the successful transfer and processing of map information. The memory performance of map users is an important indication of the quality of a map design. Studies of spatial memory have mainly relied on recall performances, but maps can be used in various ways depending on the map user's task and applied strategy. Therefore, one memory paradigm does not cover the entire spectrum of options for examining the retrieval of map information. Three different experiments were designed to analyze and compare memory performances using different map information in recall and recognition (combining episodic and semantic memory) paradigms. The results demonstrate that map complexity, as varied by the amount of displayed map detail, contributes significantly to memory performance. Moreover, memory enhancement affected by map-structuring elements (grids) depends on the respective paradigm and also on the visual ...
How do you get there from here? Mental representations of route descriptions
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 1999
In two experiments, participants received a spatial description relating a route through an environment. Descriptions diered in terms of the spatial perspective presented, either route or survey, and the degree to which spatial information was determined, either indeterminate, determinate, or overdeterminate. In Experiment 1, participants read the description and in Experiment 2 they listened to the description and took notes for later use. Results indicated that perspective and determinacy in¯uenced memory and the contents of participants' notes. More speci®cally, perspective in¯uenced the integration of information. The eect of determinacy depended on degree. Indeterminacy in¯uenced use of a mental representation, in particular during way®nding. Overdeterminacy stressed working memory, thereby in¯uencing many aspects of performance. In summary, perspective and determinacy, which commonly vary in spatial descriptions, in¯uence the ability to eciently use descriptions.
The representation of spatial mental models in long-term memory
1994
This thesis is concerned with how people understand and remember spatial information derived from verbal descriptions. The thesis distinguishes between three different ways of representing spatial information in working memory. The first way is to represent the surface form of the source from which the spatial information is derived (the language of a description). The second is to represent the structure of the situation derived from that source (a spatial mental model). The third is to represent the perceptual characteristics of the situation from a particular perspective (a visual image). Considerable evidence exists that people construct and manipulate spatial mental models in working memory. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the claim that mental models are represented in long-term memory. An outline of the spatial mental modeling processes required to understand a simple spatial description is proposed. It is proposed that spatial mental modeling is comprised of thr...
Spatial Cognition & Computation, 2005
Successful wayfinding requires accurate encoding of two types of information: landmarks and the spatial relations between them (e.g. landmark X is left/north of Y). Although both types of information are crucial to wayfinding, behavioral and neurological evidence suggest that they have different substrates. In this paper, we consider the nature of the difference by examining comprehension times of spatial information (i.e. route and survey descriptions) and landmark descriptions. In two studies, participants learned simple environments by reading descriptions from route or survey perspectives, half with a single perspective switch. On half of the switch trials, a landmark description was introduced just prior to the perspective switch. In the first study, landmarks were embellished with descriptions of visual details, while in the second study, landmarks were embellished with descriptions of historic or other factual information. The presence of landmark descriptions did not increase the comprehension time of either route or survey descriptions, suggesting that landmark descriptions are perspective-neutral. Furthermore, visual landmark descriptions speeded comprehension time when the perspective was switched, whereas factual landmark descriptions had no effect on perspective switching costs. Taken together, the findings support separate processes for landmark and spatial information in construction of spatial mental models, and point to the importance of visual details of landmarks in facilitating mental model construction.
Routes to Remember: Comparing Verbal Instructions and Sketch Maps
Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, 2014
Sketch maps of routes have been widely used to externalize human spatial knowledge and to study wayfinding behavior. However, specific studies on what information and how people recall route information they obtain from verbal instructions by drawing sketch maps are limited. This chapter aims to know how much information, especially landmarks and streets, people recall after following a wayfinding task. We conducted an experiment and asked participants to draw a sketch map of the route they travelled. Landmarks were classified based on their locations on the route. Sketch maps were compared with verbal instructions to analyze what specific landmarks and street information people recalled as well as what other information was added. Our study showed that (1) landmarks along the route were sketched as often as landmarks located at decision points; (2) participants added landmarks and streets which were not mentioned in the verbal instructions. This chapter provides a better understanding of wayfinding strategies and spatial learning.