Comparison of Configurational , Wayfinding and Cognitive Correlates in Real and Virtual Settings (original) (raw)

The role of configuration in human cognition and wayfinding has been considered important by numerous researchers. In this regard, experiments have suggested that the topology based configurational analysis of Space Syntax is a significant predictor of both. However, these experiments were mostly done in real settings without sufficient control of extraneous variables. Observations of wayfinding behavior were measured by the number of times an axial space was used (Haq, 2003; Peponis, 1990), and cognitive understanding was measured (among others) by the number of times an axial line appeared in sketch maps (Haq and Girotto, 2003; Kim, 2001). These measures correlated well with syntactic values of the spaces, yet, the experiments can be criticized because they did not address the presence of, or the interrelationships with, other environmental variables such as signs and numbers, architectural differentiation and perceptual access (Weisman, 1989) These drawbacks can be overcome with ...