Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219

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Journal of Environmental Psychology

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Adaptivity of waynding strategies in a multi-building ensemble: The effects

of spatial structure, task requirements, and metric information
Christoph Holscher a, *, Simon J. Buchner a, Tobias Meilinger a, b, Gerhard Strube a
a
University of Freiburg, Centre for Cognitive Science, Friedrichstrasse 50, 79098 Freiburg, Germany
b
Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tu bingen, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study investigates the adaptivity of waynding strategies in a real-world setting of a multi-building
Available online 13 June 2008 ensemble. Familiarity with the environment, map usage and verbal vs. visual task instructions were
systematically varied. Measures included path choices, waynding performance and information usage.
Keywords: Thirty-two participants had to nd eight goals in a multi-level building ensemble consisting of two
Cognition distinctive building parts. It was tested whether the standard wall-mounted oor maps found in the
Architecture
majority of public buildings can help navigation in a complex unknown environment. Unfamiliar users
Waynding strategies
tried to make use of these plans more frequently, but were not able to compensate for spatial knowledge
Adaptivity
Representation decits compared to participants familiar with the setting. Two strategies of multi-level waynding were
compared with respect to a region-based hierarchical planning approach. Strategy selection could be
shown to be highly adaptive to spatial properties of the environment as well as characteristics of the task
instruction, i.e., spatial precision of target information. Overall, the strategy of moving horizontally into
the target building prior to vertical travel was shown to be more effective in this multi-building setting.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction identifying incongruent oor layouts, disorienting staircases and

Finding ones way around public buildings such as airports,
hospitals, ofces, or university buildings often proves to be
a tedious and frustrating task. Waynding in a complex setting
with less than perfect knowledge requires decision making under
uncertainty and we aim to identify the behaviors and strategies
that people employ to navigate in such environments.
Several researchers (e.g., Garling, Lindberg, & Mantyla, 1983;
Moeser, 1988; Montello, 1991) stressed the role of familiarity with
a building, and illustrated how training of sequential routes or
survey knowledge can boost orientation performance in complex
buildings like hospitals. Most studies on waynding performance
and building complexity have limited themselves to investigations
in the horizontal plane of isolated oor levels. Soeda, Kushiyama,
and Ohno (1997) were able to show that waynding performance
in tasks involving oor level changes is largely hindered by
disorientation during vertical travel on stairs or elevators, extend-
ing earlier observations (Passini, 1992). Holscher, Meilinger,
Vrachliotis, Brosamle, and Knauff (2006) report waynding dif-
culties observed in a complex multi-level conference centre,
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 49 761 203 4937; fax: 49 761 203 4938.
E-mail address: hoelsch@cognition.uni-freiburg.de (C. Holscher).
lack of visual access to important level-related building features as
main causes of difculty (cf. Weisman, 1981).
The current study extends this research to a setting which
introduces an additional dimension of complexity: It comprises
both multiple levels, and multiple building parts that differ in their
vertical and horizontal congurations. Holscher et al. (2006) have
pointed both to the importance of familiarity with a building and
the use of specic strategies to support route choice decisions in
multi-level waynding. The building setting in the current paper
provides the opportunity to shed further light on the relationship
between these aspects, and how the conguration of the building
and task characteristics contribute to it.
1.1. Waynding strategies in complex buildings
When people have only an incomplete or uncertain represen-
tation of a spatial setting, they need to rely on navigation strategies
to ll in the gaps. Holscher et al. (2006) identied three waynding
strategies that are used to support route choice decisions in three-
dimensional multi-level buildings: First, the central point strategy of
sticking as much as possible to main corridors and main places in
the building predominantly used by rst-time visitors. Second,
the direction strategy of choosing routes that head towards the
horizontal position of the goal as directly as possible, irrespective of

0272-4944/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.05.010
 lscher et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219
C. Ho
level changes (cf. least-angle strategies: Conroy Dalton, 2003;
Hochmair & Frank, 2002). Both proved to be inferior to a third
strategy based on forming a hierarchically organized navigation
plan (Hirtle & Jonides, 1985). Such a strategy seems to be based on
cognitively segmenting the setting into regions which guide navi-
gation decisions (see Wiener, Schnee, & Mallot, 2004, who describe
such strategies for two-dimensional outdoor settings). This strategy
reduces the complexity of planning and navigation by rst entering
the target region before starting ne-tuned search. In the Holscher
et al. (2006) study, this strategy of rst moving to the correct oor
in the building was characterized as a oor strategy, since in that
building oor levels were the predominant hierarchical aspect of
the building.
1.2. Visual vs. number-based instructions for navigation tasks
Besides the spatial characteristics of a building, waynding tasks
can differ especially regarding the amount and type of goal directed
information they provide and thus inuence waynding strategy
choices. Rooms in public buildings are generally identied by
a room number, a propositional descriptive scheme that implies
information about the general region of a goal location, i.e., in a task
like go to room no. 1215 the participant usually knows on which
oor he will nd the target room. The room numbering scheme in
this setting also provides information about the building part in
which the room is located. In contrast to this, a task instruction that
provides only directional but no propositional information, e.g., by
pointing to the goal location, may not foster a hierarchical planning
process to a similar extent. In this case, people may try to minimize
the angular deviation from the linear distance and follow
a direction-based least-angle strategy (Conroy Dalton, 2003;
Hochmair & Frank, 2002). Thus, the kind of information that is
provided in the task instruction may elicit route choice and
performance differences.
1.3. The role of maps
Thorndyke and Hayes-Roth (1982) found evidence that the
information learned from a map is quite distinct from information
learned while navigating in an environment, since the map
provides survey knowledge rather than accurate, direct route
knowledge. Garling et al. (1983) presented evidence that showing
a oor map to participants immediately prior to testing reduced the
effects of limited view when learning the building. Learning from
a map can be equally effective as having actually visited a building
(Richardson, Montello, & Hegarty, 1999) or even lead to better
performance compared to long-term users of a building (Moeser,
1988) at least with respect to survey knowledge.
Yet it is not unequivocally clear that access to oor maps does
indeed have a positive impact on real-life waynding performance.
Butler, Acquino, Hissong, and Scott (1993) present evidence that
you-are-here maps in a similarly complex setting had no positive
effect at all, in fact, waynders attending to such wall-mounted
maps lost time without gaining any navigational advantage. It is also
well-documented that using a map that is misaligned with ones
current orientation can be detrimental (Levine, Jankovic, & Palij,
1982), a feature of many standard oor maps in public buildings.
Independent from map alignment, information in maps has to
be transferred from survey perspective into route perspective. This
transfer is associated with switching costs (Lee & Tversky, 2001;
Shelton & McNamara, 2004). Learning an environment from direct
experience or an oblique perspective drawing, therefore, can lead
to better performance than learning from a oor plan, or from
a oor plan and a cross-section (Fontaine, 2001).
We have chosen a specic type of map for our study: In all public
buildings in Germany as well as most of the Western world re
209
regulations specify exactly how the oor plans on display must be
designed. These plans are dened by law and are omnipresent. One
would naturally hope that these maps adequately support
waynding tasks in the building especially in case of an emergency.
1.4. Research questions and hypotheses
In the previous study (Holscher et al., 2006), region-based
navigation was clearly based on mentally segmenting the building
by oor levels (cf. Montello & Pick, 1993). But how does
a regionalization account of strategy choice generalize to other,
more complex building settings? For the building ensemble in the
present study, it is not immediately obvious how a route choice
preference would look if a hierarchy-based, region-oriented strat-
egy is employed: The building ensemble consists of at least two
identiable horizontal parts which could be interpreted as regions
by a navigator. At the same time, however, the building ensemble
has a multi-level structure, which may also foster a level-based
mental regionalization of the setting, just as in Holscher et al.
(2006). Thus, it is not clear how the participants will segment the
building when applying a hierarchy-based strategy. Also, it is not
a priori clear if individuals idiosyncratically prefer a certain strategy
or if they adapt it according to external constraints such as the task,
the instruction or familiarity.
The results in Holscher et al. (2006) suggest that a oor-based
strategy would be (a) more successful than a direction-based
strategy and that (b) users familiar with the building will rely on it
to a greater extent. An alternative hypothesis, as sketched above,
states the multi-building ensemble requires a highly adaptive
selection of routes, reecting the possible dual hierarchy in multi-
building ensembles, so that a clear prevalence of the oor-based
strategy (especially with familiar users) would not be expected.
More generally, we wish to clarify to what extent the choice of
navigation strategies is adaptive to systematic variation of the
waynding task, both regarding information provision (instruction)
and properties of the local setting (origindestination pairs). Gray,
Sims, Fu, and Schoelles (2006) have recently presented evidence
that participants can be highly sensitive to small changes in the
required effort and in the processing costs of cognitive tasks.
Participants do change between competing solution strategies
adaptively based on these factors. While this general observation
was obtained in a humancomputer interaction context it should
be tested whether and if, how it translates to other real-world
domains like waynding in complex buildings. If the participants in
our study are sensitive to differences in the spatial relation of start
and goal location as well as the information content provided with
the task instruction, they should not stick to one strategy across all
tasks, but should change strategies relative to task properties.
Background knowledge may play a signicant role in this context.
From the study by Holscher et al. (2006) one would expect
participants familiar with the setting to prefer a oor-rst strategy,
unless the local properties of the building favour the opposing
strategy of directional navigation.
To further test the adaptive character of strategy choice, the
present study will also systematically vary, rst, the instruction
between number-based presentation and visual presentation,
mimicking a situation someone is making a gesture to indicate
a location. The number-based task instruction can be expected to
foster a oor-based strategy rather than a direction-based strategy,
because in the room number the oor information is particularly
salient. Second, the availability of additional metric information
about the building was varied by controlling access to wall-
mounted maps of the building. In general, participants familiar
with the building should perform better than unfamiliar ones due
to their enhanced knowledge about the environment. Also,
participants using a map should perform better than those not
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using a map. Map users receive additional information about the
environment which participants not using a map dont have avail-
able. In order to build up a spatial representation of the environment
they have to rely on the knowledge they have acquired by navigating
through it. However, the study by Butler et al. (1993) would suggest
no effect of map use. Concerning the interaction of familiarity and
map use the studies of Richardson et al. (1999) and Moeser (1988)
prompted the hypothesis that the availability of maps will allow
unfamiliar users to compensate at least partially for their spatial
knowledge decit compared to familiar users. Thus, unfamiliar
participants in the map condition should use maps more frequently
than familiar participants but with respect to their performance they
should be as successful as familiar participants.
2. Method
In the experiment, navigational performance and verbalisation
of visitors with prior experience with the adjacent university
buildings was compared to the behavior of novices visiting for the
rst time. Map usage was controlled by either allowing or denying
the participants access to the re plans of the building which were
located close to the various staircases in the building.
Generally, the task consisted of nding a goal specied by a room
number. In two of the tasks, this instruction was systematically
compared to giving exact location information by showing the rooms
location from the outside, without mentioning the room number.
2.1. Participants
Participants were students from different universities and
colleges in Freiburg. One had a background in Geography, none of
them studied architecture. Sixteen women and 16 men between 18
and 34 years of age (M 23, SD 3.0) participated in the experi-
ment. The 16 participants familiar with the building had visited it on
a weekly basis for at least two semesters. The 16 unfamiliar partic-
ipants, by contrast, had never been to the building at all. Participants
were randomly assigned to the map and instruction conditions,
yielding experimental groups of equal size. The familiarity and map
conditions were fully balanced for gender. There was a slight gender
imbalance for the order of the number-based and visual task
instruction, as seven women received the visual instruction (see
below) on task 6 while nine women performed that task with the
number-based instruction (and vice versa for the following task 7).
Fig. 1. Plan view of the building ensemble. The left and the central part belong to the original building from 1911, the right part was added in the 1960s.
2.2. Material
The design of Freiburg Universitys main building (see Fig. 1) is
composed of two distinct building sections, built in 1911 (KG I) and
1961 (KG III). This building is now used for the arts and humanities
exclusively. The KG I section consists of a squarish main section
with a linear outbuilding (mezzanine, half-height level change),
which at its end meets the open-space design of the KG III section.
The oors of the buildings are connected by various passages
and stairways (except 2nd oor, KG III). Due to different heights
between the oors, and different numbers of oors (four at KG I
compared to ve at KG III) the user has to change the oors in an
irregular and often unexpected way (see Fig. 2). The numbering
system in the building consists of four-digit room numbers. The
rst digit codes whether a room is located in the KG I or KG III part
(e.g., 1019 vs. 3047), treating the main part of KG I and its mezzanine
oors as one. The second digit corresponds to the oor level,
counted separately for KG I and KG III, leading to a mismatch on
upper levels (see Fig. 2). The wall-mounted maps in the experiment
were standard re plans that, by law, are required to be posted at
specied points in all public buildings. Each plan depicts the layout
of the current oor, but is limited to either KG I (for an example, see
Fig. 3) or KG III. Plans are located next to main staircases and
elevators on each level. Eleven out of these 20 wall-mounted re
maps were misaligned by 90 or 180 , the rest were properly
aligned with a viewers facing direction.
2.3. Procedure
The experiment was set up as a 2  2 design with map acces-
sibility (accessible/not accessible) and familiarity (familiar with the
building/not familiar) as between subjects factors. For two of the
tasks, a variation of instruction type (visual vs. number-based) was
introduced as a third factor.
The experiment lasted about 90 min, including the instruction
and debrieng as well as post-experimental written tests (not
reported here, as they are beyond the scope of this article).
Participants were instructed to think aloud and thus verbalize their
thoughts and considerations (Ericsson & Simon, 1993; Passini,
1992); performance was video-taped. Participants practiced the
thinking-aloud procedure on a mental arithmetic task in order to
familiarize them with providing task-concurrent verbalization in
the waynding tasks. During the waynding tasks they were
 lscher et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219
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Fig. 2. Conguration of oors with circulation areas. Starting points and goals of the navigation tasks are marked by numbers (example: s1 is the starting point of the rst task,
1 its goal location. As tasks are linked, 1 marks the starting point for task 2 and 2 marks its goal.). The gure also documents the mismatching oor numbering scheme across
different parts of the building.
212 lscher et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219
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Fig. 3. An example re plan, located in the KG I main section, 3rd oor.
repeatedly encouraged to continue verbalizing their thoughts while
making navigational decisions.1 Half of the participants were
allowed to use the oor maps of the building, whereas the other
half were not. Due to the size of the re plans it was not possible to
read the maps without standing close to it, so in the no-map
condition it was impossible for the participants to look at the maps
without the experimenter taking notice. The participants main
task was to subsequently nd eight locations in the building. All
participants received the tasks in the same order, and the tasks
were linked such that one tasks goal location was the next tasks
starting point (see Fig. 2).
The tasks were selected in a way that their complexity increased
(with respect to the number of oor changes and the requirement
to change the buildings). This was done in order to accommodate
for the participants increasing knowledge about the building while
they performed the tasks. In order to provide a fairly realistic
situation, the waynding tasks were initiated by verbally providing
the room number such as Find room number 1019.2 This type of
instruction provides the same information as students might have
when they gain the room number from their timetable. Participants
were given no further explanation about the room numbering
scheme itself.
While tasks 13 were designed to foster only one waynding
strategy each (for details see Table 3), the remaining tasks (from
1
Authors like Soh and Smith-Jackson (2004) have found retrospective thinking
aloud to provide very good accounts of navigational procedures and the use of
waynding cues. For the present study, a retrospective thinking-aloud procedure
would not have been feasible. In contrast to Soh and Smith-Jackson (2004) par-
ticipants perform a series of tasks in the same environment, so that in retrospective
prompting participants might easily confuse their state-of-knowledge and their
planning decisions between situations of passing the same decision point in dif-
ferent tasks. Under these circumstances, hindsight rationalizations (Ericsson & Si-
mon, 1993) might have dominated the reported planning processes.
Task-concurrent thinking aloud is well established for capturing active working
memory content. We are aware of the limitations of task-concurrent verbal reports
to illicit procedural and tacit knowledge and thus base our analysis foremost on
behavioral data, using the verbalizations as a supplementary data source.
2
The target locations were: Room 1019 (task 1), room 1192 (task 2), room 3120
(task 3), room 1486 (task 4), courtyard (task 5), room 1234 (task 6), room 3301 (task
7), room 3220 (task 8).
4 to 8) were planned to equally allow for both a oor-based and
a direction-based strategy, i.e., changing rst to the oor of the
assumed goal location (oor strategy) or walking rst horizon-
tally into the direction where the goal is assumed to be located
(direction strategy). In order to investigate the effect of number-
based vs. visual (directional) information, the instruction was
varied accordingly in two tasks: For one half of the participants it
was changed in task 6, for the other in task 7. This was done in
order to balance between the directions of movement: The two
tasks were matched with respect to complexity of the path, level
changes and length. Instead of a number-based instruction, the
target room was shown visually to the participant in such a way
that the experimenter pointed to the target room, while the
participant was standing in the door leading to the courtyard
(visual instruction). In addition, the target room was marked by
a black X in the window. This type of instruction provided both
vertical and horizontal direction information non-verbally. It
explicitly avoided any reference to room numbering or level
information (as an instruction like it is the third window from
the bottom might have done). The order of instruction, i.e.,
whether participants received the visual instruction on task 6 or
on task 7, was randomly assigned.
2.4. Measures
2.4.1. Performance
For each task, the shortest route as well as a list of reasonable
route alternatives was determined beforehand. The traversed route
of each participant was drawn for each task in the building plan.
This was used to determine route distances and detour distances.
Stops and stop time were marked along the route at the places
where it occurred. Navigation performance was measured by
a number of variables:
 Duration: mean time to complete a task
 Stops: mean number of stops per task (other stops than those at
maps)
 Stop time: mean stop time per task (from stops other than those
at maps)
 lscher et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219
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 Detour distance: the mean length of detours/task, where detour
is dened as leaving the path and returning to it at the same
point.3
 PAO (percentage above optimal path length): the distance (in % of
the optimal route) that was walked additionally to the length of
the optimal route
2.4.2. Orientation behavior and verbalizations
The second group of measures classied the participants
orientation behavior and verbal comments. A symbol was assigned
to each category and marked at the location where the behavior
occurred. The coding scheme was ne-tuned until all categories
could be reliably recognized with a sufcient inter-rater reliability
(kappa value of .70; for a detailed description of verbal data
handling see Holscher et al., 2006)
The following measures were collected based on video analysis
combined with verbal comments of the participants:
 Looked at room no.: frequency of looking at room numbers in
order to orientate oneself
 Orient on outside: frequency of looking to the outside in order to
orientate oneself
 Forgot room number: frequency of forgetting the target room
number and asking the experimenter for it
 Stops at maps: frequency of stopping at a wall-mounted map
 Time/stop at maps: average time of stopping at a wall-mounted
map
2.4.3. Strategy choice
Strategy choice was classied based on the trajectories observed
in the study, separately for each of the eight tasks. A coding scheme
for mapping trajectories to strategy choice was compiled by three
raters and revised until unanimous classication was possible.
A trajectory was classied based on the initial part of the journey.
The oor-rst strategy was assigned when the participant changed
to a different oor before moving into another section of the
building. A direction strategy was assigned, if the participant did
not change the oor before either reaching the goal location or
moving into the other main section of the building. If movement via
the mezzanine was ambiguous regarding these two strategies or if
the participant returned to the main entrance hall of the KG I
section, no strategy was assigned.
3. Results
The waynding tasks were analyzed with respect to perfor-
mance measures as well as orientation behavior and corresponding
verbalizations. First results are presented for the inuence of
familiarity with the building and map usage on waynding
performance and orientation behavior. This is followed by results
about path choice strategies.
For the analysis of waynding performance and orientation
behavior the data of all tasks were aggregated. As in one of the two
tasks 6 and 7 the instruction was varied only the task with the
number-based instruction was included in the analysis. The effect
of instruction is considered separately and is reported later in this
paper.
3
As detour frequency correlated strongly with detour distance (r .79) only
detour distance is reported, as it is more sensitive to the length (and thus severity)
of detour episodes.
213
A multivariate ANOVA with factors familiarity (familiar, unfamiliar)
and map usage4 (map used, no map used) was conducted for the
performance measures. A MANOVA was chosen, because the per-
formance measures are not independent from each other (median
correlation: .55).
Separate ANOVAs were conducted for the measures of orientation
behavior since they were considered to be independent (median
correlation: .20). An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical tests.
3.1. Performance across tasks
Participants familiar with the building were expected to
perform better than those who were not. Map usage was expected
to help unfamiliar participants more than familiar participants.
The MANOVA showed a main effect of familiarity, F(5,24) 4.84,
p .003, h2partial :50, but neither a main effect of map usage nor an
interaction. Tests of the between subject effects showed that un-
familiar participants took more time to complete the task,
F(1,28) 19.34, p < .001, h2partial :41, stopped more frequently,
F(1,28) 14.32, p .001, h2partial :34, stopped longer, F(1,28)
7.34, p .011, h2partial :21, walked longer detours, F(1,28) 7.37,
p .011, h2partial :21, and had a higher PAO, F(1,28) 14.51, p .001,
h2partial :34 (for means and standard deviations see Table 1).
As expected the familiar participants performed better than
unfamiliar, presumably due to their deeper spatial knowledge
about the test environment. Map use in general did not enhance
performance. The hypothesis that unfamiliar participants are able
to compensate for their lack of knowledge by using information
from the maps (interaction of familiarity and map use) was not
empirically supported.
Yet, not all maps were aligned with their surroundings. Could the
lack of performance advantages in maps be due to improper map
alignment, generally known to hamper performance? To answer
this, a separate analysis was conducted for tasks 3 and 7 in which
only correctly aligned maps were encountered by the participants:
again neither a signicant main effect of map use, nor an interaction
with familiarity was established. Thus, the lack of advantage for map
users most likely cannot be ascribed to misaligned maps.
Map use did not increase performance, but how frequently and
how long did participants use the maps? For those participants who
had a map available a MANOVA with factor familiarity was performed
for the frequency of map access per task as well as the reading time of
maps per access and task. The overall MANOVA was signicant
F(2,11) 5.54, p .022. Unfamiliar participants consulted maps more
frequently than familiar participants, F(1,12) 9.65, p .009,
h2partial :45. The mean reading time did not differ, F(1,12) 0.08,
p .782 (for means and standard deviations see Table 1).
For familiar participants, it was not necessary to use maps very
often due to their elaborate knowledge about the setting. However,
even familiar participants who visit the setting regularly performed
far from perfect. Unfamiliar participants consulted the maps more
frequently than familiar, but they were not able to take advantage
of this additional information.
3.2. Orientation behavior across tasks
Separate ANOVAs with factors familiarity and map use were
conducted for each category of orientation behavior.
4
Univariate tests within the MANOVA were performed as planned paired com-
parisons (LSD). For this and the following analyses, two participants (one familiar,
one unfamiliar) were moved from the map condition to the no-map condition, as
they never used a map in any of the tasks. Since they did not gain any information
from external representations, they may be treated in the same way as participants
who were not allowed to use a map. Thus, the name of the factor map accessi-
bility was changed to map usage.
214 lscher et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219
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Map users looked at room numbers in order to orient them- Table 2

selves less frequently than participants who never looked at a map,
F(1,28) 6.43, p .017, h2partial :19. The main effect of familiarity
and the interaction were not signicant. It appears that people
without access to the wall-mounted maps were more prone to
adopting this strategy of systematic local search.
Unfamiliar participants looked more frequently at the outside
in order to orient themselves than familiar participants,
F(1,28) 5.60, p .025, h2partial :17. The main effect of map use
and the interaction were not signicant. Looking for landmarks
outside the building in order to keep up ones own location in
relation to them is a common technique during navigation.
Unfamiliar participants used it more frequently presumably due to
their lack of knowledge about the building.
Unfamiliar participants forgot the target room number more
frequently than familiar participants, F(1,28) 8.55, p .007,
h2partial :23. The main effect of map use and the interaction were
not signicant. The target room number was a four-digit number
which participants were told at the beginning of the task. The task
to remember such a number is trivial. However, the result can be
interpreted as an indicator of increased processing load for
unfamiliar participants.
3.3. Gender effects
While gender effects on spatial performance are commonly
reported in the literature (for an overview, see Coluccia & Louse,
2004), our previous studies had found hardly any gender effect for
indoor waynding (Holscher et al., 2006; Meilinger, Holscher,
Buchner, & Brosamle, 2007). We conducted a MANOVA with factors
gender, familiarity and map use for the performance measures and
separate ANOVAs with the same factors for the behavioral mea-
sures. In the MANOVA neither the main effect nor any interaction of
gender with the other factors was signicant (all F(5,20) < 2.37, all
p > .08). The ANOVAs for the behavioral measures revealed no main
effect of gender (all F(1,24) < 1.88, all p > .18), and no signicant
interactions (all F(1,24) < 3.37, all p > .08). There were no signicant
differences between male and female participants with respect to
waynding performance and orientation behavior in this study.
For the analysis of the frequency of map use and the time per
map access we conducted a MANOVA with factors gender and
familiarity. There was a main effect of gender, F(2,9) 8.28,
p .009, h2partial :65, though no interaction. Male participants
appeared to access the maps slightly less frequently (M 0.83
times/task; SD 0.31) than female (M 1.23; SD 0.73). Yet, this
gender effect could not be conrmed in the univariate analyses, as
these tests failed to reach the signicance criterion (frequency of
map access: F(1,10) 3.49, p .09, h2partial :26; time per map
access: F(1,10) 1.76, p .21). Overall there was little evidence for
a gender effect in waynding performance, orientation behavior
and map use in this experiment.
Means and (standard deviations) of selected performance and orientation behavior
measures in the visual and the number-based instruction (tasks 6 and 7 only).
Measures Instruction
Visual Number-based
Duration [s] 235 (68) 209 (46)
Stops [n] 2.97 (2.19) 2.09 (2.31)
Complete stop time [s] 35 (35) 9 (11)
Orient on outside [n] 0.66 (0.90) 0
Looked at room number [n] 0.31 (0.82) 2.06 (2.09)
Stops at maps [n] 0.14 (0.36) 1.14 (1.29)
3.4. Performance and orientation behavior with instruction
variation
In tasks 6 and 7, half of the participants received a visual
instruction instead of a room number. The tasks were matched (cf.
Section 2.3) starting at the ground oor of one building. The goal
was located on the third oor of the other building. The tasks only
differed in the direction of movement. Each participant received
the visual instruction in only one of the two tasks.
No differences were found for the order of instructions (i.e.,
visual instruction rst vs. number-based instruction rst). There-
fore, the data were collapsed for the further analysis. Data of the
two tasks were aggregated and a MANOVA with factors familiarity,
map use and instruction type (visual, number-based) was
conducted for the performance measures. As in the previous
analyses there was a main effect of familiarity, F(5,52) 2.99,
p .019, h2partial :22, but no main effect of map usage,
F(5,52) .67, p .650. More interestingly for this analysis, there
was a main effect of instruction type, F(5,52) 3.90, p .004,
h2partial :27, though no interaction of familiarity or map use with
instruction type was signicant. In the visual instruction condition
participants stopped longer, F(1,56) 18.73, p .001, h2partial :25,
and there was a statistical trend for them to stop more frequently,
F(1,56) 3.33, p .073, h2partial :06, as well as to take longer to
complete the, F(1,56) 3.85, p .055, h2partial :06 (for means and
standard deviations refer to Table 2).
Again, separate ANOVAs with factors familiarity, map use and
instruction type were conducted for the behavior measures. In the
visual instruction participants oriented more frequently on the
outside than those in the number-based condition, F(1,56) 10.40,
p .002, h2partial :16 (in fact in the number-based condition no
participant oriented on the outside), while in the number-based
condition participants more frequently looked at room numbers for
orientation, F(1,56) 6.50, p .014, h2partial :10. Also, participants
who had a map available consulted it more frequently in the
Table 3
Task properties (left panel) and frequencies of strategy choice (right panel).

Task properties Frequencies

Table 1 Task Instruction Floor change Building change Floor Direction Sum
Means and (standard deviations) of performance and behavior measures. required required strategy strategy
(no. of oors)
Measures Familiar Familiar Unfamiliar Unfamiliar
1 No (0) No
map no map map no map
2 Yes (1) No 25 5 30
Duration [s] 160 (20) 157 (28) 224 (50) 202 (34) 3 No (0) Yes 2 24 26
Stops [n] 1.54 (0.87) 1.83 (0.77) 3.58 (1.94) 3.29 (0.96) 4 Yes (3) Yes 18 10 28
Complete stop time [s] 10 (6) 8 (6) 22 (21) 18 (7) 5 Yes (4) Optional 20 8 28
Detour distance [m] 11 (5) 19 (7) 30 (14) 25 (18)
PAO [%] 43 (14) 52 (15) 84 (44) 98 (40) 6 X Yes (3) Yes 5 10 15
Looked at room number 1.23 (0.69) 1.82 (0.78) 1.66 (0.70) 2.56 (1.13) Room no. Yes (3) Yes 10 7 17
Orient on outside 0.13 (0.19) 0.04 (0.09) 0.27 (0.19) 0.28 (0.27) 7 X Yes (3) Yes 5 11 16
Forgot room number 0.29 (0.19) 0.43 (0.22) 0.63 (0.31) 0.69 (0.28) Room no. Yes (3) Yes 7 6 13
Stops at maps [n] 0.61 (0.29) 1.28 (0.5)
Time/stop at maps [s] 9 (3) 25 (11) 8 Yes (2) Yes 7 25 32
 lscher et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219
C. Ho 215

25 Table 4
Selected means (and standard deviations) of performance and behavior measures in
Strategy the analysis of the post-hoc identied strategy choices.
20 Direction
Floor Measures Strategy
Frequency

15 Floor Direction
Duration [s] 210 (66) 186 (70) *
Stops [n] 2.49 (2.30) 2.17 (2.94)
10
Complete stop time [s] 12 (20) 15 (27)
Detour distance [m] 22 (31) 13 (25) *
5 PAO 98 (109) 37 (51) *

*Indicates that p < .05.

0
X Room Number
Instruction
Fig. 4. Choice of strategy (frequency) as a function of instruction. The gure shows the
data from tasks 6 and 7 combined.
number-based condition than in the visual, F(1,24) 10.32,
p .004, h2partial :30. This illustrates that participants chose
different external sources of information depending on the type of
information already provided with the task instruction.
There was a main effect of strategy, F(5,131) 3.84, p .003,
h2partial :13. Participants who changed the oor rst performed
worse than those who changed the building rst. They took longer
to complete the task, F(1,135) 10.14, p .002, h2partial :07, they
walked longer detours, F(1,135) 9.13, p .003, h2partial :06, and
they had a higher PAO, F(1,135) 5.97, p .016, h2partial :04(for
means refer to Table 4).
4. Discussion

Major waynding performance differences were identied

3.5. Strategies
between participants who were familiar with the building and
those who were not. This nding was expected as it conrms the
The analysis of strategies in this study was twofold: On the one
nding of familiarity effects by other researchers. It demonstrates
hand, strategy choice was investigated as a function of different
how difcult indoor waynding in a realistically complex setting is
factors like task instruction and familiarity. On the other hand, the
for untrained users, the target audience of most public buildings.
success (in terms of waynding performance) of a chosen strategy
Even the familiar participants performed far from perfect in this
was tested.
setting, pointing to usability challenges in the multi-level multi-
The hypothesis stated that strategic choice would vary as
building ensemble. The observation that participants frequently
a function of task, instruction and familiarity, not by intrinsic
forgot target room numbers suggests a severe memory load
preferences of individuals. This could be clearly established (cf.
imposed by the complex building structure. This stresses a practical
Table 3).
need to better understand waynding challenges in architecture.
In the tasks where both strategies were applicable (tasks 48)
Methods for analyzing such waynding challenges have recently
only two participants chose the same strategy throughout all tasks.
been presented by Holscher et al. (2006) and Brosamle and
In general, in different tasks different strategies were applied (c2(7,
Holscher (2007).
N 221) 68.8, p < .001).5
In the following sections, the evidence for an adaptive nature of
Also, the variation of instruction type in tasks 6 and 7 led to the
waynding strategies in complex building settings is discussed
choice of different strategies (Fig. 4): If participants had to reach the
rst. We then look at further experimental results with respect to
room marked with an X (visual instruction) they more often
task instruction effects and map use and conclude with a preview
changed the building rst, whereas if they had to reach the same
to follow-up research.
room identied by its number (number-based instruction) they
more often changed the oor rst (tasks 6 and 7 added together,
4.1. Adaptive strategy choice
c2(1, N 61) 3.68, p < .028, one-tailed). Across all eight tasks,
familiar and unfamiliar participants acted very similarly: No
When people have incomplete knowledge about a path
general difference in their choice of strategy across all tasks was
network, they rely on strategies to guide their path choices. The
revealed (c2(1, N 221) 1.15, p .283). Similar to familiar and
main question of this experiment was whether participants would
unfamiliar participants, map users and participants not using a map
adapt their waynding strategies to task and environmental
also did not differ in their general strategy preference (c2(1,
characteristics. And indeed it was found that strategy choice is
N 221) 0.03, p .956), nor did women and men (c2(1,
largely inuenced by characteristics of the building, task features
N 221) 0.17, p .392). So the two main factors determining the
and the instruction rather than being an idiosyncratic preference of
choice of a strategy are task and instruction. Familiarity, gender and
the individual participant.
individual preferences play a minor role.
But which strategy was more useful? In order to answer this
4.1.1. Instruction variation
question, we performed a MANOVA on the above mentioned
With respect to the instruction variation, a striking interaction
measures with factors strategy, instruction and task. The latter two
was found between the visual vs. number-based instruction and
factors were included in order to statistically control the inuence
the preferred path choice strategy: with the visual instruction more
of task and instruction. As it was not possible to reasonably apply
people change to the other building section rst, while with the
both strategies in task 1, 2 or 3, these tasks were excluded from this
number-based instruction the oor strategy dominates. One could
analysis.
now speculate that a propositional presentation of the room
number might trigger a navigation strategy based on the oor level
5
Not all subjects could be clearly assigned to one strategy in every task. For
of the target room. But, in this setting the numbering scheme
comparing the inuence of task, both instructions in tasks 6 and 7 were added provides information on both of the hierarchy dimensions oor
together. level and building section, making this interpretation less clear-cut.
216 lscher et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219
C. Ho
Fig. 5. Visual vs. number-based task instruction: The large X illustrates the position of the marked window, the circle represents the viewing location/start point of the task, dark
grey areas mark the target region likely to be inferred from the room number instruction Go to room 1234.
Looking at the information content provided with the task, there
is not only an obvious difference in the presentation format, but
also in the degree of precision our participants were able to gain
from it. In the visual condition, it was very clear for them, that the
target location was at the other end of the courtyard, in the
opposite building part and thus horizontally much further away
than vertically. But if participants received the room number
information, none of them knew exactly in which corridor the
target room would be (especially for task 6, room 1234). From the
numbering scheme it was clear in which general region the room
must be (2nd oor of KG I), and verbal comments indicate that most
participants could also not eliminate the mezzanine part of the
building as a potential target area (for an illustration, see Fig. 5). As
a consequence, the rational strategy for the room-number
instruction group was to access the potential target region as
quickly as possible, following a oor strategy. For the visual
instruction such a precaution was not called for, as the target room
was pinpointed more clearly.
4.1.2. Task variation
The navigation strategies followed a decisive pattern of
regionalization (Wiener et al., 2004): The building can be mentally
divided into a dual hierarchy of building parts and oor levels.
When only one hierarchical aspect is involved (the oor change in
task 2 or the building change in task 3), people relied very strictly
on it. Thus, they changed either the oor or the building before
searching for the rooms horizontal position.
When participants had to change both buildings and oors
within a single task, the picture was more ambiguous. For an
interpretation of the path choices observed here, it is important
to consider with what level of precision the participants could
identify the target position based on the number information
provided to them. Interestingly, familiar and unfamiliar partici-
pants overall differed rather little in their strategy choice, which
most clearly reects differences between the tasks. Familiar
participants had a better understanding of the overall structure
and connectivity of the building ensemble, but when participants
received a room number, almost none of the participants were
sure about its precise location. After performing the rst three
tasks, most participants were able to identify the general region
of the building in which the target room must be located, i.e.,
they could identify the building section (KG I vs. KG III) as well as
the oor level based on the numbering scheme. A rational ap-
proach, trying to avoid potential backtracking inside the target
region, would suggest moving to the nearest edge of the target
region on a straight path whenever possible (Wiener et al., 2004).
Thus, rst moving to the nearest edge of the potential target
region (see also Fig. 5) is considered to be the relevant sub-goal
for strategy selection.
If the participants knew that this target region was further away
horizontally than vertically, they rst walked horizontally changing
the building and then went for the correct oor. This was the case
with the visual instruction (X in the window) in tasks 6 and 7 as well
as in task 8 where the participants rst had to cross the whole
building KG I. If the participants otherwise had to assume that the
horizontal distance was at least potentially shorter compared to
the vertical one, they rst changed the oor and only then the
building section. That was the case in tasks 4 and 5 and in the room
number instruction in tasks 6 and 7. In other words, if two options for
a hierarchical strategy were equally available in a task, the vertical
and horizontal direction information was used to disambiguate the
path choice.
4.1.3. Strategy choice and waynding performance
Finally, which strategy was more successful? In the case of this
multi-level multi-building setting, the strategy of rst moving into
the correct part of the building before changing to the proper level
was much more effective across a number of performance
measures. On rst sight, this observation is at odds with the
performance boost found in Holscher et al. (2006) for exerting
a oor-rst strategy in a multi-level building. But in fact, in both
studies, the effective strategy relies on hierarchical planning to
overcome difculties in the building. The present study extends the
complexity of the multi-level building in Holscher et al. (2006) to
a multi-building setting. This multi-building setting has a mis-
matching number of oors, so that, e.g., for the second and third
oor, changing between the buildings was not easily possible and
the 4th oor of KG III had the same elevation as the 3rd oor of KG I.
Across all tasks, the direction strategy of rst changing the building
section is best suited to overcome the additional burden of the
present setting, namely the inconsistencies in oor numbering and
relative oor elevations between parts of the building.
One further difference between the eight tasks is the degree of
consistency or dominance of one particular path choice: for the rst
three tasks there is little variation, since only one type of region
change is required. For tasks 47 a considerable minority (about
one-third) choose the non-dominant strategy. This can be attrib-
uted to the fact that for these tasks, both strategies offer reasonably
direct access to the target region, thus making path choices more
arbitrary. For the nal task (task 8) once again a strong dominance
of one option, the direction strategy, was observed. In this task, it
was quite clear to the participants that their horizontal travel was
longer than the vertical part. Furthermore, there was no direct
connection on the target level, making the directional strategy safer.
 lscher et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219
C. Ho
4.1.4. Strategies, familiarity and map access
Also in contrast to our previous ndings on strategy choice, no
general differences were found between strategy choices of par-
ticipants who were familiar with the building and novices, a fact
that is likely attributable to the strong inuence of task- and in-
struction-related effects. Yet, for the one task where familiarity
differences in strategy choice were clearly identied, the familiar
participants denitely preferred the more successful strategy. This
is a direct replication of the earlier nding (Holscher et al., 2006):
experts prefer a strategy with a higher success rate.
As with familiarity, the availability of maps did not inuence
strategy choice much. This was likely due to the fact that any given
map only displayed a single oor within one building. The three-
dimensional structure of the building ensemble, the differences
between oors and the unusual vertical connection were not sa-
liently represented in the maps (see Section 4.3). It therefore makes
sense that map availability did not inform strategy choice.
Overall, the path choice strategies observed here were highly
adaptive to both the overall geometry of the building and the in-
formation provided with the task variants. If one takes into account
that participants for the most part knew about target regions rather
than precise room locations, it appears that they have used hierar-
chical strategies insofar as they tried to move to the proper region
most directly and then performed local search. For tasks which
supplied two equally reasonable alternative paths to the target re-
gion, they ne-tuned their initial path choice with a least-angle
heuristic, not to the nal room number, but to the target region.
Thus, a nesting of direction-based and hierarchical decision ele-
ments was found in this complex building setting. This nding may
help to reconcile the apparent opposition between path choice
strategies based on hierarchical representations of space (Hirtle &
Jonides, 1985; Wiener et al., 2004) and those concentrating on
geometric relations like least-angle (Hochmair & Frank, 2002). The
adaptive nature of strategy choice indicates that both types of
strategy can be present in the same person and the same setting and
are triggered by specic factors of spatial relation between desti-
nations as well as the information detail available to the navigator.
In general, the results indicate a strong inuence of strategy
choice due to the spatial and information characteristics of the task
rather than a stable preference of the individual participant. This
nding may appear to contradict studies indicating individual dif-
ferences in spatial ability and strategy use (e.g., Coluccia & Louse,
2004; Lawton, 1996). However, many results revealing ability dif-
ferences focus on object-sized spaces rather than on spaces one
navigates through like in the case of the present study (cf. Hegarty
& Waller, 2005). Also, a questionnaire constructed to capture in-
dividual differences in large-scale spaces did not correlate sub-
stantially with performance parameters in this study (Santa
Barbara Sense of Direction Scale; Hegarty, Richardson, Montello,
Lovelace, & Subbiah, 2002). In principle, the application of a certain
strategy might depend on individual spatio-cognitive abilities. For
example, directly approaching a target on one level probably de-
pends on the ability to encode metric relations. The FSBSOD self-
report measure of individual differences examined here did not
show an inuence. Whether individual differences as measured
by standardized psychometric ability tests systematically interact
with the role of environmental features for path choice strategies
would need to be claried by future studies but goes beyond the
scope of the current work. In addition, the sample size of 32
participants in the present study would be considered small for
a study focusing on individual differences. Even for tasks with less
precise requirements a substantial subset of participants chose the
non-dominant strategy, indicating an inuence of individual path
choice. So the strong inuence of environment on strategy choice is
no contradiction to the existence of individual differences as
reported in other studies.
217
4.2. Visual vs. number-based task instruction
This study has identied signicant differences between a visual
and number-based task instruction both with respect to perfor-
mance measures and path choice strategies.
Despite the fact that the start and destination locations were the
same in both task versions, participants who received the visual
instruction had more problems solving the task. This is reected in
a longer overall task duration as well as in more frequent and
longer stops. What makes the task with a visual instruction more
difcult to perform correctly? Several factors are likely to play
a role: Participants saw the target location from the outside of the
building and had to translate that information to their
understanding of the internal structure of the building, i.e., they
need to switch from an external to an internal perspective of the
building. In addition, when approaching the target location on
the inside (from the corridor) a match must be found between the
window and its corresponding room door.6
Participants clearly understood that the task variation put
different demands on their behavior and consequently used dif-
ferent types of environmental information to solve the task: With
the visual instruction, the participants used orientation to the
outside about twice as often as across all other tasks, while in the
two matched number-based tasks, no orientation to the outside
was observed at all. By contrast, participants given visual in-
structions hardly ever referred to one of the wall-mounted maps
to identify the location of their destination in the corridor system,
while participants with the number-based instruction very
heavily relied on map usage to solve their task (more than twice
as often than on average across all eight tasks). Interestingly, no
signicant interaction was revealed between prior familiarity
with the building and the instruction variation. Consequently, the
different task characteristics affected familiar and unfamiliar
participants in a similar fashion. Familiarity may be more limited
to everyday task demands, i.e., search a room by number, than
one might have expected.
The results are also consistent with recent ndings regarding
the representation of complex spaces like buildings. These ndings
indicate that such spaces are rather represented in several units
than unied in within one continuous representation (e.g.,
Meilinger, Riecke, & Bulthoff, 2007; Wang & Brockmole, 2003). For
example participants do not necessarily update the whole area
(Wang & Brockmole, 2003) and instead orient on local reference
frames rather than on a global reference frame common for the
whole area (Meilinger et al., 2007). Accordingly in the present study
participants quickly pick up relevant units of the building ensem-
ble, i.e., oors, and adopt their strategies according to them
regarding the task requirements. Having the environment clustered
into relevant partitions should also allow humans to exibly adopt
strategy choices according to the task affordances, as was observed.
Further information about the geometric ne structure within such
a proposed unit as provided by the maps did not increase perfor-
mance. These units seem to be accessed more easily via number-
based instructions compared to visual instructions, since with
visual instructions several of these units have to be combined
mentally in order to solve the task.
As was discussed in the previous section, the variation of visual
vs. number-based task instruction had the most prominent
modulating effect on path choice strategies in this study. Together
with the differences in using the external navigation aid of maps,
this highlights the adaptive nature of waynding behaviors on
different scales. The nding illustrates that one must be very careful
6
But this later fact alone is almost certainly not responsible for the substantial
difference in task duration observed here.
218 lscher et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219
C. Ho
when generalizing research ndings in waynding studies, as these
task characteristics inuence the strategy choice and may modulate
effects of geometrical properties (environmental features) as well
as inter-individual differences. It also implies that building users
who have a general idea about the location of a room, but do not
know the specic room number (or look for a named function like
a radiology department or departmental library), may choose
rather different paths than people who have been given the more
precise information about the room number.
This has important consequences for the design of the circula-
tion system in complex multi-level buildings to make sure that both
strategies are equally well supported. Especially, designers should
take care to fully connect all oors both vertically and horizontally,
unlike the discontinuities in the present building. Brown, Wright,
and Brown (1997) describe similar navigation decits in a more
qualitative Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) of a hospital complex
with separated inpatient and outpatient sections. In their study
participants who initially confused the building sections, used the
wrong entrance and then employed a oor strategy (possibly trig-
gered by knowing a room number) got stuck at closed corridors in
the upper oors. The present study provides a controlled experi-
mental conrmation for this qualitative observation.
4.3. Maps
When given the opportunity, unfamiliar participants tried to
compensate for their lack of prior knowledge by making use of the
wall-mounted maps. They did so both longer and more often than
familiar users. However, surprisingly it turned out that the oor
maps did not have any positive impact on waynding performance,
neither for rst time nor for regular visitors.
In fact, reading the maps required additional time and did not
receive any payback in performance enhancement (Butler et al.,
1993). One might suspect that the map decits relate to a lack of
alignment, but we were able to show that this is not a decisive
factor here (see Section 3.1). Why did the oor maps not help in
waynding? In a study on outdoor navigation Soh and Smith-
Jackson (2004) demonstrated the impact of cultural differences on
successful map usage, likely due to differences in level of experi-
ence with map conventions and experience with the particular type
of environment. For the present study, we can safely assume that
the participants were familiar both to the general type of map and
the type of environmental setting (public university buildings), and
simply lacked knowledge about the particular building. Despite
violating several design principles (Klippel, Freksa, & Winter, 2006),
the re plans do provide detailed and accurate survey information
about single oors within each building section. However, the
waynding tasks require across-level as well as across-section
navigation. Participants may have had trouble to integrate
information from single oor maps into a coherent multi-level
representation of the whole building or even parts of it. In this
particular building ensemble, the oor numbering is inconsistent
between the main parts of the building (KG I vs. KG III) and the oor
numbering is not transparent with respect to the mezzanine levels.
Nonetheless, the main decit of the re plans clearly generalizes to
other multi-level multi-building environments: In most real-world
cases, the re plans of complex buildings do not cover the area
beyond a single building section or oor and thus fail to supply the
necessary information for route planning across oors or sections.
The re plans were not only designed to help re ghters
entering the building to quickly assess its topography in the case
of a re, but also to help visitors to quickly nd a way out in the
case of an emergency. In our study participants were instructed
to nd the target room as quickly as possible. At the same time
they were instructed to solve the task in a calm manner without
any hurry, so they actually had as much time as they wanted to
study the map and orient themselves in the building. This would
clearly not be the case in an emergency where people are under
stress and tend to panic. This as well as other research (Klippel
et al., 2006) shows that the deployment and design of emergency
maps have to be re-considered and be subject to empirical
testing.
Naturally, these results do not imply that maps are inadequate
for spatial learning or navigation per se. Thorndyke and Hayes-Roth
(1982), like many others, have impressively shown that maps can
be an excellent means of acquiring spatial knowledge, especially
survey representations which normally require a rather long time
to acquire via route navigation alone. The present ndings imply
that the standard wall-mounted maps, but not maps in general, are
inadequate for navigating complex multi-level settings like the
building in our study. It is an important topic for our subsequent
studies to identify how wall-mounted maps should be improved in
order to support these tasks in a better way. We suspect that it will
be especially important to make sure that all parts of the building
ensemble and all vertical connections are properly included in such
improved maps. Also, it should be helpful if at least those wall-
mounted maps positioned near vertical decision points (staircases)
would be supplemented with a means to illustrate the topology of
the vertical connections, e.g., with a cross-sectional diagram. The
adequate level of schematization for this support is also subject to
future research.
4.4. Future research
Together with a group of information designers the authors
are currently investigating opportunities for improving the
guidance system in this building ensemble. Maps have been re-
designed together with a consistent set of signage to rooms in
the setting. A follow-up study involves the same tasks in order to
allow for a comparative analysis of the current decits and pos-
sible improvements. Preliminary results (Holscher, Buchner,
Brosamle, Meilinger, & Strube, 2007) indicate that even large,
salient maps which were designed particularly for the purpose of
easy navigation may not allow rst-time visitors to reliably
compensate for their lack of knowledge in such a complex real-
life building setting. Instead signs appear to be the main attrac-
tors of attention and people tended to follow them instead of
intensively studying the maps. This aspect of our research has
a focus on real-world application and further studies are needed
to get a fuller understanding of the role of external navigation
aids for successful waynding and for incidental as well as de-
liberate spatial learning.
With respect to more basic research into navigation strategies
and cognitive representation of the environment, we will continue
our efforts to extend the indoor waynding research to further
types of public buildings with different spatial layouts and
properties. Both the settings in Holscher et al. (2006) and in the
present study owe their complexity largely to vertical structure,
while within a single level the path choices were relatively
limited. It remains to be investigated how the hierarchically- based
waynding strategies that we have identied extend to layouts that
provide mostly within-oor horizontal extend and complexity.
Hospital or airport terminal buildings would be prime examples of
such settings to validate the scope of applicability as well as the
adaptive value of human waynding strategies. We start by looking
at a building with a less complex internal structure to further
untangle the relationship of hierarchical route choice elements
(predominantly oors) and least-angle based directional cues. Here
initial results also indicate that these two general choice elements
may be combined adaptively, partly based on which spatial
dimension is dominant in the mental representation of an
individual user.
 lscher et al. / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 208219
C. Ho 219

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