In a large scale environment humans rely on their mental representations cognitive maps to solve navigational problems. To approach the understanding of how humans acquire, process, and utilize information from the environment, three groups of participants in this study performed several experiments associated with finding their way in a previously unknown environment. Experimental tasks included route retracing, pointing to previously visited locations, and a questionnaire regarding wayfinding strategies and cognitive map development. Each of three groups of participants was in one of three unique conditions: 1. learning and retracing with navigational landmarks indicating right and left turns at decision points; 2. during route retracing only generic landmarks were present at decision points (landmarks indicating left and right were present during learning but replaced during retracing); and 3. no landmarks were present during route retracing (landmarks indicating left and right were present during learning but removed before retracing started). Results supported the hypothesis that during the initial stages of visiting an unknown environment we build metric knowledge together with non-metric knowledge associated with the broad categories of landmark and route knowledge. In addition, the environment plays an important role in wayfinding performance and that characteristics of the environment contribute differently to the development of our cognitive map. Last but not least, the strategies humans use to solve wayfinding problems in a novel environment are not based on an individual type of environmental knowledge; in fact, we switch between different types of environmental knowledge when necessary. Shifting between strategies appears to be from more familiar environmental knowledge to less familiar knowledge. In particular, participants from group 3 (no landmarks during the retracing period) were more likely to walk off-route during retracing but exhibited more accurate metric knowledge of the environment. Based on the results of this experiment, they combined route- and survey-based strategies in wayfinding and switched from the most familiar knowledge to a less familiar strategy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-12142007-162912 |
| Date | 17 December 2007 |
| Creators | Li, Rui |
| Contributors | Nolan, James F., Bell, Scott M., Aitken, Alec E., Peters, Evelyn |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-12142007-162912/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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