When in doubt follow your nose-a wayfinding strategy

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human Navigation
• Spatial Memory

Background:

• Route selection strategies aim to minimize memory load.
• Previous studies indicated navigators focus on turns, not straight paths, in newly learned routes.
• A
• when in doubt follow your nose
• strategy was proposed, prioritizing memorizing turns.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the
• when in doubt follow your nose
• strategy applies to planning routes in familiar environments.
• To examine memory asymmetry for turns versus straight paths in familiar settings.

Main Methods:

• Participants planned routes in their city of residence using keyboard arrow keys.
• Route planning involved identifying and recalling directional decisions.
• Response times for indicating straight vs. turning paths were recorded.

Main Results:

• Participants tended to ignore straight walking intersections but recalled turns more readily.
• Quicker responses were observed when participants indicated straight walking paths compared to turns.
• Memory asymmetry for route planning persists in familiar environments.

Conclusions:

• The
• when in doubt follow your nose
• strategy is likely employed in familiar environments.
• This strategy may stem from limitations in working memory capacity during route planning.
• Navigation strategies balance memory load and decision accuracy.