The use of heuristics during route planning by expert and novice orienteers

Expert orienteers have reported using two heuristics when planning routes to points in the environment that must be located, known as 'controls'. These heuristics constitute attending to the start first and subsequently planning forward to a given control, and attending to the control first and planning backwards to the start. The aim of this study was to establish which heuristic experts use predominantly and whether novices' use of these heuristics differs from that of experts. Two methods for tracing attention were used while 20 expert and 20 novice orienteers planned routes in the laboratory. The results were used to infer the use of heuristics. The orienteers were also interviewed about planning. We found that, when planning, experts generally attend to the control first and novices to the start first. There was also some evidence that novices work forwards from the start to the control and that experts work backwards from the control to the start. From the interviews, it would appear that experts regard the location of the control as the crux of the problem and prioritize this area during planning. These results have implications for an understanding of expertise and problem-solving in sport.