East is not right: Spatial compatibility differs between egocentric and cardinal retrieval

Uncertainty promotes information-seeking actions, but what information?

Navigating an unfamiliar city almost certainly brings out uncertainty about getting from place to place. This uncertainty, in turn, triggers information gathering. While navigational uncertainty is common, little is known about what type of information people seek when they are uncertain. The primary choices for information types with environments include landmarks (distal or local), landmark configurations (relation between two or more landmarks), and a distinct geometry, at least for some environments. Uncertainty could lead individuals to more likely seek one of these information types. Extant research informs both predictions about and empirical work exploring this question. This review covers relevant cognitive literature and then suggests empirical approaches to better understand information-seeking actions triggered by uncertainty. Notably, we propose that examining continuous navigation data can provide important insights into information seeking. Benefits of continuous data will be elaborated through one paradigm, spatial reorientation, which intentionally induces uncertainty through disorientation and cue conflict. While this and other methods have been used previously, data have primarily reflected only the final choice. Continuous behavior during a task can better reveal the cognition-action loop contributing to spatial learning and decision making.

Feedback and Direction Sources Influence Navigation Decision Making on Experienced Routes

When navigating in a new environment, it is typical for people to resort to external guidance such as Global Positioning System (GPS), or people. However, in the real world, even though navigators have learned the route, they may still prefer to travel with external guidance. We explored how the availability of feedback and the source of external guidance affect navigation decision-making on experienced routes in the presence of external guidance. In three experiments, participants navigated a simulated route three times and then verbally confirmed that they had learned it. They then traveled the same route again, accompanied with no, correct, or incorrect direction guidance, which latter two were provided by a GPS (Experiment 1), a stranger (Experiment 2), or a friend (Experiment 3). Half of the participants received immediate feedback on their navigation decisions, while the other half without feedback did not know if they had selected the correct directions. Generally, without feedback, participants relied on external guidance, regardless of the direction sources. Results also showed that participants trusted the GPS the most, but performed best with their friends as a direction source. With feedback, participants did not show differences in performance between the correct and incorrect guidance conditions, indicating that feedback plays a critical role in evaluating the reliability of external guidance. Our findings suggest that incorrect guidance without any feedback might disturb navigation decision-making, which was further moderated by the perceived credibility of direction sources. We discuss these results within the context of navigation decision-making theory and consider implications for wayfinding behaviors as a social activity.