Landmark-based navigation instructions improve incidental spatial knowledge acquisition in real-world environments [original]

Anna Wunderlich, Klaus Gramann

Landmark-based navigation instructions improve

incidental spatial knowledge acquisition in

real-world environments

Open Access via institutional repository of Technische Universität Berlin

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Journal article | Accepted version

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Citation details

Wunderlich, A., & Gramann, K. (2021). Landmark-based navigation instructions improve incidental spatial

knowledge acquisition in real-world environments. In Journal of Environmental Psychology (Vol. 77, p.

101677). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101677.

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Landmark-Based Navigation Instructions Improve Incidental

Spatial Knowledge Acquisition in Real-World Environments

Anna Wunderlich and Klaus Gramann

Technische Universität Berlin

Anna Wunderlich1 0000-0003-2378-1164

Klaus Gramann1 0000-0003-2673-1832

1 Technische Universität Berlin, FG Biopsychologie und Neuroergonomie, Berlin

10623, Germany

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anna Wunderlich,

Technische Universität Berlin, FG Biopsychologie und Neuroergonomie, Fasanenstr. 1,

Eingang 1, Berlin 10623, Germany. E-mail: anna.wunderlic[email protected]

Manuscript type: Original article

Landmark-Based Navigation Instructions Improve Incidental Spatial

Knowledge Acquisition in Real-World Environments

Abstract. The repeated use of navigation assistance systems leads to decreased

processing of the environment. Previous studies demonstrated that auditory

references to landmarks in navigation instructions can improve incidental spatial

knowledge acquisition when driving a single route through an unfamiliar virtual

environment. Based on these results, three experiments were conducted to

investigate the generalizability and ecological validity of incidental landmark and

route knowledge acquisition induced by landmark-based navigation instructions.

In the first experiment, spatial knowledge acquisition was tested after watching

an interactive video showing the navigation of a real-world urban route. A second

experiment investigated incidental spatial knowledge acquisition during assisted

navigation when participants walked through the same real-world, urban

environment. The third experiment tested the acquired spatial knowledge two

weeks after participants had walked through the real-world environment.

All experiments demonstrated better performance in a cued-recall task for

participants navigating with landmark-based navigation instructions as compared

to standard instructions. Different levels of information provided with landmark-

based instructions impacted landmark recognition dependent on the delay

between navigation and test. The results replicated an improved landmark and

route knowledge when using landmark-based navigation instructions

emphasizing that auditory landmark augmentation enhances incidental spatial

knowledge acquisition, and that this enhancement can be generalized to real-life

settings.

This research is paving the way for navigation assistants that, instead of

impairing spatial knowledge acquisition, incidentally foster the acquisition of

landmark and route knowledge during every-day navigation.

Keywords: automation, spatial knowledge acquisition, real-world, cued-recall

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

Navigation aids have become common everyday tools (Axon et al., 2012; Kalin & Frith,

2016; Kitchin & Dodge, 2007). They provide visual as well as auditory guidance as a

support during wayfinding through known and unknown environments (Allen, 1999).

With the use of navigation aids, wayfinding evolved from analog 2D map-based tasks

into digitally assisted instruction following tasks.

Several studies investigated the users’ interaction with navigation aids in order to

describe and understand the underlying cognitive processes. One finding was that the use

of automated assistance systems was associated with divided attention between the

movement related task and the assisted navigation (Fenech et al., 2010; Gardony et al.,

2013, 2015). This resource allocation conflict increases the reliance on the navigation

assistance in order to reduce attentional demands (Baus et al., 2001; Klippel et al., 2010;

Parush et al., 2007) leading to an automation bias (Lin et al., 2017). The users tend to

hand over the decision-making to the automated system (Bakdash et al., 2008; Fenech et

al., 2010; Parush et al., 2007). They follow the system instructions without checking other

available information (Mosier et al., 1996; Parasuraman, 2000) and this over-reliance

leads to a decrease in the processing of the surrounding environment (Fenech et al., 2010;

Hirtle & Raubal, 2013; Leshed et al., 2008).

As a consequence, when the navigation aid is no longer reliably functioning (e.g.,

because of system errors or GPS signal loss), people are more likely to get lost because

of their inability to extract navigation relevant information from the environment and to

orient using their own sense of direction. However, even when the system works properly,

the risk of getting lost remains based on inadequate application of or over-reliance on the

navigation assistance system. This was revealed in a corpus of 158 so-called “Death by

GPS” incidents published in the English news between 2010 and 2017 (Lin et al., 2017).

Only those reports were chosen that contained incidents caused by an improper use of

navigation assistance systems reporting an unusually high number of single-car crashes

(32%) and that most of the “Death by GPS” incidents happened in an unknown

environment (78%). These data point to a relative increase of rare accidents involving no

other road users demonstrating that the use of automated assisting technologies can

negatively impact the primary driving task.

Thus, the first goal of an improved navigation assistance system should be to

maintain the ability to extract navigation relevant information from the environment

without endangering the users’ safety. One solution to this end is the inclusion of

environmental information about salient objects, so called landmarks (Evans et al., 1982),

in the navigation instructions (Goodman et al., 2005; Li et al., 2014; A. May et al., 2001).

It was shown that landmark knowledge can be incidentally acquired during navigation to

a similar level as intentional learning (Chrastil & Warren, 2012; Van Asselen et al., 2006).

Compared to visual augmentation methods, acoustic navigation instructions have the

advantage to not interfere with visual attention necessary to observe the ongoing traffic

(May & Ross, 2006; Ross et al., 2004). Ross and colleagues investigated landmark-based

auditory navigation instructions regarding their usability for pedestrians. The authors

demonstrated the effectiveness of landmark-based auditory instructions leading to fewer

navigation errors and increased navigator’s confidence during navigation, as compared

to a control group. While the study by Ross and colleagues demonstrated improved

navigation performance, the authors did not test for the impact of auditory landmark

information on spatial knowledge acquisition.

To test whether auditory landmark-based navigation instructions lead to increased

processing of environmental information beyond improving safe navigation, Gramann

and colleagues (2017) referenced landmarks at intersections in a virtual driving task.

Landmark augmentation was implemented by naming landmarks and providing

additional information about the landmark at intersections with route direction changes.

This resulted in incidental acquisition of navigation relevant information about the

environment (Gramann et al., 2017). The improved landmark and route knowledge

acquisition with landmark-based navigation instructions was observable even when tested

three weeks after a single exposure to an unfamiliar environment (Wunderlich &

Gramann, 2018). It was further found to be associated with changes in brain activity likely

reflecting increased information recollection during cued-recall of landmark- and route-

knowledge about the navigated environment in general (Wunderlich & Gramann, 2018).

The results of both virtual driving studies in Gramann and colleagues (2017) as

well as Wunderlich and Gramann (2018), showed a significantly improved recognition

performance for landmarks at intersections with route direction changes when navigators

received landmark-based instructions (e.g., “At the zoo, turn left. There you can visit

various animals”) as compared to standard navigation instructions known from

commercial systems (e.g., “At the next intersection turn left.”) These results support the

assumption that the inclusion of landmark information in navigation instructions was

associated with directing the users’ attention towards environmental features. Landmarks

(i.e., salient and lasting aspects of the surrounding environment like buildings) are

essential elements of spatial representations and necessary for conceiving spatial relations

(Ekstrom & Isham, 2017; Siegel & White, 1975). Referencing landmarks in auditory

navigation instructions might thus be a promising way to foster processing of the

environment that in turn leads to incidental spatial knowledge acquisition during the use

of navigation assistance systems. Importantly, the enhanced processing of the

environment when using landmark-based instructions did not impact the subjective

mental load or the driving behavior, thus, securing safety of the primary driving task

(Gramann et al., 2017; Wunderlich & Gramann, 2018).

The reported studies by Gramann and colleagues (2017) as well as Wunderlich

and Gramann (2018) used two versions of landmark-based navigation instructions that

included the name of a landmark located at the intersection to guide attention to the

surroundings and additional landmark information to foster more elaborate processing of

the environment which can be linked to lasting memory traces (Lockhart and Craik,

1990). To this end, one instruction condition added personally relevant information to

landmarks (for example: “Turn right at the bookstore. There, you can buy books of J.R.R.

Tolkien.” in case J.R.R. Tolkien was the favorite author of the tested participant).

Personal interests in different categories were acquired prior to the experiment and

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