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Visibility significantly impacts wayfinding in multilevel environments. When destinations are visible, people instantly switch floors; when not, they explore, a pattern modeled by cognitive agents.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Virtual Reality

Background:

  • Wayfinding research often focuses on memory and spatial cognition, with limited investigation into the direct impact of environmental visibility.
  • Multilevel environments present unique wayfinding challenges due to vertical spatial complexity and limited sightlines.
  • The interaction between visibility and wayfinding under uncertainty in multilevel settings remains under-explored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the effect of destination visibility and vertical sightline continuity on unaided wayfinding in a multilevel environment.
  • To understand how visibility influences goal-directed wayfinding behavior and decision-making processes.
  • To develop and validate a visibility-based cognitive agent model that replicates observed human wayfinding patterns.

Main Methods:

  • A desktop Virtual Reality (VR) study was conducted with 69 participants, each completing 24 wayfinding trials.
  • Participants navigated a multilevel environment, with varying levels of destination visibility and sightline continuity manipulated.
  • Wayfinding behavior, including floor-switching decisions and exploration patterns (head movements, time), was recorded and analyzed.

Main Results:

  • A significant, nonlinear correlation was found between destination visibility and wayfinding behavior.
  • Visible destinations prompted immediate floor-switching decisions, irrespective of high or low visibility.
  • Out-of-sight destinations led to increased visual exploration, characterized by more vertical head movements and longer decision times.

Conclusions:

  • Visibility is a critical, direct factor influencing wayfinding decisions in multilevel environments.
  • Human wayfinding behavior transitions between exploration and exploitation based on visibility cues.
  • A visibility-based cognitive agent model can effectively replicate human wayfinding patterns, suggesting potential for informing cognitive modeling and architectural design.