Wayfinding Strategy and Gender - Testing the Mediating Effects of Wayfinding Experience, Personality and Emotions.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Human Geography

Background:

• Individual differences significantly influence spatial orientation.
• While gender's role is known, mediators like wayfinding anxiety, emotional difficulties, and experience require further study.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how wayfinding experience, anxiety, and emotional difficulties mediate the relationship between gender and spatial orientation skills.
• To explore gender differences in wayfinding-related emotions and effective wayfinding skills.

Main Methods:

• 269 participants completed questionnaires on wayfinding strategies, experience, satisfaction, anxiety, neuroticism, emotion regulation, and personal safety.
• Principal component analysis identified four key components: outdoor wayfinding experience, wayfinding-related fear, emotional difficulties, and effective wayfinding skill.
• Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the relationships between variables.

Main Results:

• Gender predicted effective wayfinding skill and wayfinding-related fear.
• Outdoor wayfinding experience, wayfinding-related fear, and emotional difficulties did not mediate the link between effective wayfinding skill and gender.

Conclusions:

• Gender plays a distinct role in emotions during spatial orientation.
• Understanding the complex interplay of emotions and spatial orientation requires further investigation.