Neuroscience
You've probably been there. You're late, lost, and you ask an innocent passer-by for directions. It begins undauntingly enough: "Left at the lights, straight ahead, third right," ... but then your head starts to spin ... "then follow the corner round until you reach the park, then second right, then first left, you can't miss it" ... You nod and thank them politely while panic privately sets in. There's no way you can remember all those details.
According to Alycia Hund and colleagues at Illinois State University, there are two ways to give directions. One is using a so-called "route perspective", as in the example above. This adopts a first-person spatial perspective and is characterised by references to turns and landmarks. The other is a so-called "survey perspective", which gives directions as if looking down upon a map. This type of direction giving is characterised by references to cardinal directions (North, South, East and West) and precise distances.
When Hund's team used a fictitious model town made of plywood to test the ability of undergraduates to follow directions, they uncovered a curious anomaly. The students reported finding route perspective directions easier to follow and yet they steered a toy car to a destination more quickly and effectively when they were following cardinal directions.
One explanation is that detailed route descriptions sound appealing, but when it comes to actually following directions, it helps if the instructions are concise and vague enough so that if you take a wrong turn you still know the general direction you ought to be following.
Lead author Hund told the Digest that the best wayfinding directions bring together a variety of features that help people reach their goals. "It is important to provide complete, yet concise details regarding the route to follow," she said. "Often, streets or other segments are highlighted, with particular attention to details (landmarks) at choice points, such as intersections. People want enough details so they can follow, but not extraneous details that will be difficult to remember or follow. Moreover, it is important for direction givers and followers to work together to be sure their goals and preferences are taken into account."
Indeed, in relation to Hund's last point about cooperation, the good news is that people do appear to have a natural ability to tailor their direction-giving to a traveller's needs. Another experiment in the current paper showed that students tended to give more route-perspective style directions when helping an imaginary car driver but more cardinal-directions when helping a fictitious person in possession of a map.
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Alycia M. Hund, Kimberly H. Haney, Brian D. Seanor (2008). The role of recipient perspective in giving and following wayfinding directions Applied Cognitive Psychology, 22 (7), 896-916 DOI: 10.1002/acp.1400
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
How to give directions
You've probably been there. You're late, lost, and you ask an innocent passer-by for directions. It begins undauntingly enough: "Left at the lights, straight ahead, third right," ... but then your head starts to spin ... "then follow the corner round until you reach the park, then second right, then first left, you can't miss it" ... You nod and thank them politely while panic privately sets in. There's no way you can remember all those details.According to Alycia Hund and colleagues at Illinois State University, there are two ways to give directions. One is using a so-called "route perspective", as in the example above. This adopts a first-person spatial perspective and is characterised by references to turns and landmarks. The other is a so-called "survey perspective", which gives directions as if looking down upon a map. This type of direction giving is characterised by references to cardinal directions (North, South, East and West) and precise distances.
When Hund's team used a fictitious model town made of plywood to test the ability of undergraduates to follow directions, they uncovered a curious anomaly. The students reported finding route perspective directions easier to follow and yet they steered a toy car to a destination more quickly and effectively when they were following cardinal directions.
One explanation is that detailed route descriptions sound appealing, but when it comes to actually following directions, it helps if the instructions are concise and vague enough so that if you take a wrong turn you still know the general direction you ought to be following.
Lead author Hund told the Digest that the best wayfinding directions bring together a variety of features that help people reach their goals. "It is important to provide complete, yet concise details regarding the route to follow," she said. "Often, streets or other segments are highlighted, with particular attention to details (landmarks) at choice points, such as intersections. People want enough details so they can follow, but not extraneous details that will be difficult to remember or follow. Moreover, it is important for direction givers and followers to work together to be sure their goals and preferences are taken into account."
Indeed, in relation to Hund's last point about cooperation, the good news is that people do appear to have a natural ability to tailor their direction-giving to a traveller's needs. Another experiment in the current paper showed that students tended to give more route-perspective style directions when helping an imaginary car driver but more cardinal-directions when helping a fictitious person in possession of a map.
_________________________________
Alycia M. Hund, Kimberly H. Haney, Brian D. Seanor (2008). The role of recipient perspective in giving and following wayfinding directions Applied Cognitive Psychology, 22 (7), 896-916 DOI: 10.1002/acp.1400Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- People Assume It's Hillier Up North
Give people a choice of two cross-country routes to the same destination, one more northerly, the other more southerly, but both covering similar terrain, and they'll tend to favour the southerly route, and to anticipate it being quicker and easier...
- The Special Issue Spotter
We trawl the web for the latest psychology journal special issues so you don't have to: Violence and mental illness (Psychiatric Services). Current directions in risk and decision-making (Developmental Review). International perspectives on brain...
- The Special Issue Spotter
We look out for the latest journal special issues so you don't have to: Current directions (Behavioural Sciences and the Law). Language-vision interaction (Journal of Memory and Language). Attachment in Adolescence: Reflections and New Angles (New...
- Cognition: Giving Wayfinding Directions
The British Psychological Society's (BPS) Research Digest blog has an interesting post about a study that concerns itself with giving route directions: link...
- Ants!
From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC):Ants walk using internal distance clock: Study Last Updated Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:43:19 EDT CBC News Desert ants have an internal pedometer that measures how far they've marched, researchers have found....