Collaborative Navigation in an Unfamiliar Environment with People Having Different Spatial Aptitudes

Abstract

This study addressed the issue of collaborative navigation by examining the types of information communicated in the processes of direction giving and receiving between people who guided each other simultaneously to a destination over the cell phone in a novel environment. When paired with a partner whose sense of direction differed greatly from their own, people found the collaboration difficult and took a longer time to verbally direct the partner to the destination. Landmarks that people used in giving navigational instructions differed depending on sense of direction. People with a good sense of direction adjusted route directions to their partners' wayfinding ability. Results from a detailed qualitative analysis of participants' verbal protocols and implications for personalized navigation tools are discussed.

Keywords::

• collaboration
• landmarks
• navigational instructions
• route directions
• sense of direction
• wayfinding

Acknowledgments

We thank the participants whose actions and thoughts gave life to this rich data set, and Chen Chen, Mahori Inose, Judith Lenherr, Ephy Love, and Joseph Robert for their assistance at various stages of conducting the study.

Funding

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation's EAPSI Program (Grant No. 1310904) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science's Summer Program.

Notes

^1. It was possible to set the place shared by the two routes (the starting point in the current experimental design) to be the goal for collaborative navigation. In that case, after the initial walk, participants need to walk an extra distance, probably along a circuitous path outside of the study area, so that they are not exposed to the other route when switching routes. Also in that case, participants may stop navigating each other when they see their partners around the goal location, rather than directing them specifically up to the goal. Thus, to keep the experimental design concise and to examine how participants initiate and terminate collaborative navigation processes, the current design was employed.