The Effect of Vehicle Navigation Systems on the Formation of Cognitive Maps (original) (raw)
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Boletim de Ciências Geodésicas, 2018
Noise from the information communication process produced by the interfaces of navigation systems has overloaded drivers' cognitive processing systems and increased the probability of traffic accidents. This work evaluates the usability of maps of different scales in a prototype route guidance and navigation system. The maps were designed on basic cartographic communication principles, such as perceptive grouping and figure-ground segregation, as well drivers’ requirements for performing a tactical task. Two different scales were adopted, 1:3,000 and 1:6,000, and the maps implemented in the prototype. A total of 52 subjects (26 males and 26 females) participated in an experiment performed in a driving simulator. The maps describe an urban route composed of 13 simple and complex maneuvers. The drivers’ mental workload was measured in terms of visual demand, navigational error and subjective preference. Results reveal that the usability of maps is influenced by map scale variation...
Effects of Marked Routes in You-are-Here Maps on Navigation Performance and Cognitive Mapping
American Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014
A You-are-here map (YAH map) is a popular way to guide way-searchers (i.e. a person who is navigating in a more or less unknown area to a specific goal) through a designated area. With current technologies, information such as the current position and the optimal route to a chosen destination can be provided easily by marking the route in a map. In our study, we investigated the advantages and disadvantages of such marked routes on navigation performance in desktop virtual environments. 24 participants navigated through a 2 ½ D virtual environment. Navigation performance was measured by navigation time and number of deficiencies. In order to separate effects of cognitive maps from those of navigation performance, participants were asked to draw sketch maps after each trial. The results showed that participants who were shown the optimal route marked in the map beforehand, exhibited impaired knowledge of the environment and impaired navigation performance compared with those viewing the map without the route, independent of route complexity or viewing time of the map. Although map goodness was only slightly better when the route was not marked, the representation of the periphery was rated significantly better. Only route accuracy was better in the condition in which the route was marked. The results are interpreted in such way that basic impairments arise in cognitive mapping when reading a map of the designated area with a marked route, resulting in worse navigation performance.
Maps versus its users in the digital era: interpretation, cognition, and memory
Recently, a rising need to understand (novice) users of digital cartographic products has surfaced: how do they interpret and process the visual information, and how is this retrieved and used later on? A user study was conducted that combined several techniques to investigate these cognitive processes: eye tracking, thinking aloud and sketch maps. In total, 24 participants took part in the study, from which 12 were experts in the cartography. All participants had to study (learn) the content of four different topographic maps depicted on a screen. After studying each map, the participants were instructed to draw this map from memory (retrieve information), using paper and pencils. The results indicate that both user groups address the same cognitive processes, but these are positively influence by the expertise and background knowledge of the experts.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2013
Navigational driving systems have used traditional track-up map displays for guiding immediate turn-by-turn decisions and traditional north-up map displays for facilitating navigational planning and learning about environmental layout (configural spatial knowledge), because no single map display has been usable for both purposes. Rizzardo and Colle (2013) showed that north-up map displays could successfully guide turn decisions when a new spatial plus verbal advisory turn indicator was used, raising the possibility of designing single map displays that also are usable for spatial learning. Multimedia instructional design models, modified for spatial learning from navigation and driving, identified the sources of extraneous cognitive load that limit spatial learning from moving maps. Predictions include that participants can learn more from north-up map displays with the new advisory indicator than the traditional indicator. Experiment 1 showed that after college students (N ϭ 96) drove through a virtual city guided by 1 of 3 map types or voice commands, most configural spatial knowledge was acquired using the new north-up display, then the traditional north-up map display, and the least with the traditional track-up map display. In Experiment 2, college students (N ϭ 192) watched the same map sequences from either the new north-up or the track-up map display, but with a limited duration of their glances to the map display (no driving). Viewing spatial plus verbal north-up map displays produced significant spatial learning even with short glance durations, but not when viewing track-up displays even with long glance durations. Theoretical and design implications are discussed.
Drawing Maps and Remembering Landmarks after Driving in a Virtual Small Town Environment
Journal of Maps, 2007
Participants were designated active drivers or passive passengers according to whether or not they had control over the displacements of a virtual vehicle, while taking 5, 10 or 15 tours of a virtual small town environment. When tested later, passive passengers were able to remember more landmarks than the active drivers. However, with successive tours, participants in both groups were able to draw better survey maps of the environment, though this effect was greater in passive passengers. Landmark memory and map drawing ability were positively correlated. The results support models of spatial cognition that emphasise survey representations as the end product of spatial learning in new environments, but also emphasise that the acquisition of landmark information is continuous throughout this process.
Commercially available in-vehicle routing and navigational systems (IRANS) present a generic form of route guidance information to all users. However, a growing body of literature suggests that drivers differ in their navigational strategies and abilities. The current investigation was designed to examine the impact of IRANS display modality on drivers' ability to navigate through and form cognitive maps of unfamiliar areas as a function of drivers' self-reported navigational strategy and ability. Drivers were required to navigate through unfamiliar areas along specified routes in a high-fidelity driving simulator using an ego-centered auditory route guidance system (ARGS), a geo-centered visual-map guidance system (VMGS) or both the ARGS and the VMGS. Drivers in general reported lower subjective ratings of workload when using the ARGS either by itself or in combination with the VMGS. However, drivers reporting a high degree of awareness of cardinal orientation and a tende...
Impact of navigation tools on pedestrian navigation: preliminary results
Impact of navigation tools on pedestrian navigation: preliminary results, 2019
Since some experiments analyzed the impact of navigation tools on pedestrian navigation (Ishikawa, Fujiwara, Imai & Okabe 2008; Wang & Worboys 2016) little research has studied how interactive devices between mobile participants can possibly transform their cognitive maps. After many years of interactive artistic experiences between participants in distant cities, the goal of the present research is a better understanding of the links between mental, instrumental and shared maps. The question is whether connected and dynamic applications renew our shared mental representations of urban spaces. We will approach the notion of mental maps (introduced by Tolman) in its individual and collective dimensions with regard to the new uses created by connecting devices. Hypothesis: new access to cartographic tools is likely to produce new kinds of individual mental representations. Method: in these preliminary results, the objective is to compare the mental maps evidenced by maps drawn after the exploration of a single urban district between 2 groups of participants: 1) a group of individuals equipped simply with a passive GPS tracking tool, 2) a group of individuals equipped with an urban navigation application (Google maps). Measurements will include: 1) Comparison of landmarks hierarchies, 2) Comparison of routes traces and icons, 3) Direct comparison by distances between geographical landmarks and drawing landmarks by superposition of the two kinds of maps, 4) Relative comparison between internal distances in geographical landmarks and internal distances between drawings landmarks. We will compare the two groups relative to these measurements. In these preliminary investigations, and contrary to some assumptions (Ishikawa, Wang) we cannot find obvious confirmation that pedestrian users of Google maps have worse results from cognitive mapping that others without this device.
Effects of Electronic Map Displays and Individual Differences in Ability on Navigation Performance
Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2012
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine how strongly the performance of navigation tasks is affected by changing electronic map interfaces and by individual differences in spatial ability. Background: Electronic map interfaces have two common configurations, north up and track up. Research suggests that north-up maps benefit some navigational tasks and track-up maps benefit others. However, little research has investigated how map configuration affects the important navigation task of judging cardinal direction or how individual differences in spatial ability interact with map configuration in affecting navigation performance. Method: In an aerial reconnaissance task, 16 participants completed route-following, cardinal direction, and map reconstruction tasks. Participants also completed three spatial ability tests. Results: The track-up map led to better performance on the cardinal direction and route-following tasks. The north-up map led to better performance on the map r...
Interdisciplinary Journal of Signage and Wayfinding, 2021
In an age in which navigators can simply follow the represented route on their smartphone to get to their desired destination, is there any need for signage and urban legibility? This study aims to explore the effects of urban form and different navigational aids on visitors’ spatial cognition and wayfinding behavior. Thirty-eight participants were placed in one of three groups: i) a paper map only; ii) smartphones with the Google Maps app; and, iii) no navigational aids (local signage only). Participants were asked to find six pre-determined tourist destinations in central Brisbane, Australia, while they were thinking aloud. Post-task tests showed that participants in the group without personal navigational aids were more successful in landmark recognition than map users. Those who used paper maps performed best in route accuracy and street-naming tests. However, across all the spatial recognition tests, the GPS group was systematically neither the best nor the worst in terms of ac...
The territory is the map: designing navigational aids
Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCHI …, 2005
It has been shown that people encounter difficulties in using representations and devices designed to assist navigating unfamiliar terrain. Literature review and self-reported visual and textual data from field experiments are presented. This suggests usability may be limited by assumptions about landmarks implicit in designing representations. Firstly, memorable landmarks are emphasized but route following in situ requires recognizable landmarks. Secondly, little emphasis is placed on differences between landmarks contributing to higher-level concepts related to wayfinding and those directly provoking actions in the environment. Studies analyse landmarks in SMS during collaborative wayfinding to an unfamiliar rendezvous and in images to communicate routes in unfamiliar terrain. Findings illustrate usability benefits for navigation aids.This includes helping users to align a landmark's illustration to their individual perspective in the environment. It also includes identifying landmark salience for shared use by people navigating in dispersed groups to dynamically-negotiated rendezvous.