Gender Differences in Spatial Cognition: Wayfinding Performance and Sketch Mapping Activity of German Speakers

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Navigation assistance for wayfinding in the virtual environments: taxonomy and a survey

Efficient Navigation is essential for the user-acceptance of the Virtual Environments (VEs), but it is also inherently, a difficult task to perform. Resulting research in the area provides users with great variety of navigation assistance in VEs however it is still known to be inadequate, complex and suffers through many limitations. In this paper we discuss the task of navigation in the virtual environments and record the wayfinding assistance currently available for the VEs. The paper introduces taxonomy of navigation and categorizes the aids on basis of the functions performed. The paper provides views on current work performed in the area of non-speech auditory aids. Further we conclude by providing views on the important areas that require further investigation and research.

Use of auditory cues for wayfinding assistance in virtual environment: music aids route decision

This paper addresses the crucial problem of wayfinding assistance in the Virtual Environments (VEs). A number of navigation aids such as maps, agents, trails and acoustic landmarks are available to support the user for navigation in VEs, however it is evident that most of the aids are visually dominated. This work-in-progress describes a sound based approach that intends to assist the task of 'route decision' during navigation in a VE using music. Furthermore, with use of musical sounds it aims to reduce the cognitive load associated with other visually as well as physically dominated tasks. To achieve these goals, the approach exploits the benefits provided by music to ease and enhance the task of wayfinding, whilst making the user experience in the VE smooth and enjoyable.

Using technology to overcome the tyranny of space: information provision and wayfinding.

Urban wayfinding technology offers many possibilities by which older people and mobility-impaired users can overcome the barriers encountered on every-day journeys in the built environment. Previous work has highlighted the extent to which personal mobility and independence are significant determinants of the quality of life amongst both elderly and visually impaired groups. The paper outlines the development of the auditory location finder (ALF), which is a beacon-based local information system designed to enhance the wayfinding activities of these, and potentially other, user-groups in the community. The proposed system provides the user with an audio message, which is obtained on request via a small portable hand unit. The messages inform the user of their whereabouts and give information about the area that they are currently in. The development of the device involves issues such as message content and structure, route choice, orientation, landmarks, clues and the extent of user reliance on technology. Preliminary trials have been carried out in a UK city and have obtained initial user feedback to help underpin the technological development of the device and its potential application. The paper concludes by outlining the importance of new urban technology and the way in which such local information systems can potentially contribute to overcoming particular patterns of exclusion experienced by mobility-impaired groups, such as the visually impaired

Desafios da Arquitetura da Informação Pervasiva: reduzindo a desorientação, aumentando a legibilidade e wayfinding

Diante das preocupações da Ciência da Informação (CI) com os processos de tratamento da informação, constatou-se a importância da condução de estudos que auxiliem o desenvolvimento de processos e metodologias em ambientes informacionais híbridos. A partir deste pensamento, considera-se que a Arquitetura Informacional pervasiva proposta por Resmini e Rosati é um desses recursos. Assim, esta pesquisa objetivou avaliar, através da aplicação das heurísticas propostas por esses autores, os ambientes informacionais físicos e digitais do Programa de Incubação de Empresas (PROINE) da Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG), analisando de que forma esse instrumento contribui para a construção de espaços informacionais híbridos que maximizem a experiência do usuário (UX). Aplicou-se metodologias de desenvolvimento e avaliação de ambientes digitais e realizou-se a aplicação das heurísticas propostas por Resmini e Rosati possibilitando avaliar ambos ambientes através de diferentes canais informacionais. Destaca-se que a avaliação dos ambientes informacionais físico e digital, com a utilização de metodologias de apoio, permitiu que se realizasse as conexões com as heurísticas, justamente pelo grau de complexidade apresentado por estes princípios. Este é o ponto chave e principal objetivo alcançado, possibilitando apontar as falhas e realizar inferências para maximizar a UX na utilização dos canais informacionais avaliados.

Towards a Smart Campus Digital Twin: Promoting Awareness and Sustainability Through Wayfinding and Real-Time Environmental Data

The newly inaugurated Navile District of the University of Bologna is a complex created along the Navile canal, that now houses various teaching and research activities for the disciplines of Chemistry, Industrial Chemistry, Pharmacy, Biotechnology and Astronomy. A Building Information Modeling system (BIM) gives staff of the Navile campus several ways to monitor buildings in the complex throughout their life cycle, one of which is the ability to access real-time environmental data such as room temperature, humidity, air composition, and more, thereby simplifying operations like finding faults and optimizing environmental resource usage. But smart features at Navile are not only available to the staff: AlmaMap Navile is a web application, whose development is documented in this thesis, that powers the public touch kiosks available throughout the campus, offering maps of the district and indications on how to reach buildings and spaces. Even if these two systems, BIM and AlmaMap, don't seem to have many similarities, they share the common intent of promoting awareness for informed decision making in the campus, and they do it while relying on web standards for communication. This opens up interesting possibilities, and is the idea behind AlmaMap Navile 2.0, an app that interfaces with the BIM system and combines real-time sensor data with a comfort calculation algorithm, giving users the ability not just to ask for directions to a space, but also to see its comfort level in advance and, should they want to, check environmental measurements coming from each sensor in a granular manner. The end result is a first step towards building a smart campus Digital Twin, that can support all the people who are part of the campus life in their daily activities, improving their efficiency and satisfaction, giving them the ability to make informed decisions, and promoting awareness and sustainability.

The significance of Traveler's Route Knowledge for Choice of commuting mode of transport

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Localization in underground tunnels

Positioning technologies are becoming ubiquitous and are being used more and more frequently for supporting a large variety of applica- tions. For outdoor applications, global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs), such as the global positioning system (GPS), are the most common and popular choice because of their wide coverage. GPS is also augmented with network-based systems that exploit existing wireless and mobile networks for providing positioning functions where GPS is not available or to save energy in battery-powered devices. Indoors, GNSSs are not a viable solution, but many applications require very accurate, fast, and exible positioning, tracking, and navigation functions. These and other requirements have stim- ulated research activities, in both industry and academia, where a variety of fundamental principles, techniques, and sensors are being integrated to provide positioning functions to many applications. The large majority of positioning technologies is for indoor environments, and most of the existing commercial products have been developed for use in of ce buildings, airports, shopping malls, factory plants, and similar spaces. There are, however, other spaces where positioning, tracking, and navigation systems play a central role in safety and in rescue operations, as well as in supporting speci c activities or for scienti c research activities in other elds. Among those spaces are underground tunnels, mines, and even underwater wells and caves. This chapter describes the research efforts over the past few years that have been put into the development of positioning systems for underground tun- nels, with particular emphasis in the case of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), where localiza- tion aims at enabling more automatic and unmanned radiation surveys. Examples of positioning and localization systems that have been devel- oped in the past few years for underground facilities are presented in the fol- lowing section, together with a brief characterization of those spaces’ special conditions and the requirements of some of the most common applications. Section 5.2 provides a short overview of some of the most representative research efforts that are currently being carried out by many research teams around the world. In addition, some of the fundamental principles and tech- niques are identi ed, such as the use of leaky coaxial cables, as used at the LHC. In Section 5.3, we introduce the speci c environment of the LHC and de ne the positioning requirements for the envisaged application. This is followed by a detailed description of our approach and the results that have been achieved so far. Some last comments and remarks are presented in a nal section.

Orientation spatiale et plasticité de l’hippocampe chez les personnes aveugles

Il est généralement admis que la vision joue un rôle prépondérant dans la formation des représentations spatiales. Qu’advient-il alors lorsqu’un individu est atteint de cécité? Dans le premier volet de cette thèse, les habiletés spatiales des personnes aveugles ont été examinées à l’aide de différentes tâches et comparées à celles de personnes voyantes effectuant les mêmes tâches avec les yeux bandés. Dans une première étude, les capacités de rotation mentale ont été évaluées à l’aide d’une épreuve d’orientation topographique tactile. Les résultats obtenus montrent que les personnes aveugles parviennent généralement à développer des capacités de rotation mentale similaires à celles de personnes voyantes et ce, malgré l’absence d’information de nature visuelle. Dans une seconde étude, nous avons utilisé différentes tâches spatiales nécessitant l’utilisation de la locomotion. Les résultats obtenus montrent que les personnes aveugles font preuve d’habiletés supérieures à celles de voyants lorsqu’elles doivent apprendre de nouveaux trajets dans un labyrinthe. Elles parviennent également à mieux reconnaître une maquette représentant un environnement exploré précédemment. Ainsi, l’absence de vision ne semble pas entraver de manière significative la formation de concepts spatiaux. Le second volet de cette thèse s’inscrit dans la lignée des études sur la plasticité cérébrale chez les personnes aveugles. Dans le cas présent, nous nous sommes intéressés à l’hippocampe, une structure profonde du lobe temporal dont le rôle au plan spatial a été établi par de nombreuses études animales ainsi que par des études cliniques chez l’humain incluant l’imagerie cérébrale. L’hippocampe joue un rôle particulièrement important dans la navigation spatiale. De plus, des changements structuraux de l’hippocampe ont été documentés en relation avec l’expérience des individus. Par exemple, l’étude de Maguire et al. (2000) a mis en évidence de telles modifications structurelles de l’hippocampe chez des chauffeurs de taxi. À l’instar de ces derniers, les personnes aveugles doivent emmagasiner de nombreuses informations au sujet de leur environnement puisqu’elles ne peuvent bénéficier de la vision pour mettre à jour les informations sur celui-ci, sur leur position dans l’espace et sur la position des objets se trouvant hors de leur portée. Nous avons montré, pour la première fois, une augmentation du volume des hippocampes chez les personnes aveugles en comparaison avec les personnes voyantes. De plus, cette augmentation de volume était positivement corrélée à la performance à une tâche d’apprentissage de trajets. Les résultats présentés dans cette thèse permettent d’appuyer les études antérieures qui soutiennent que les personnes aveugles parviennent à compenser leur déficit et à développer des habiletés spatiales comparables, voire supérieures, à celles de personnes voyantes. Ils permettent également d’apporter un éclairage nouveau sur le concept de plasticité cérébrale présent chez cette population en montrant pour la première fois un lien entre le volume de l’hippocampe et les habiletés spatiales chez les personnes aveugles.

L’information de localisation à Montréal : une exploration

Ce mémoire de maîtrise est une recherche exploratoire sur les expériences de localisation vécues dans l’espace urbain montréalais par des sujets en relation à l’information dite « de localisation ». La localisation est un processus d’orientation spatiale où l’emplacement d’un lieu dans l’espace est un problème à résoudre. Cette exploration est basée sur la théorisation de l’information proposée par Bateson (1972) et le développement du concept de dispositif par Belin (2002) et Agamben (2007) à la suite de Foucault, la localisation étant le concept empirique exploratoire. Le processus de localisation est investigué quant à son caractère médiatique : l’information de localisation est le medium qui, en étant un résultat et une cause de l’action, donne forme à ce processus mené par l’effort. Un travail de terrain ethnométhodologique déployé par le biais d’observations empiriques et d’entrevues qualitatives permet d’identifier certaines conditions qui rendent possibles, dans la vie quotidienne, les relations entre l’information de localisation, l’espace urbain et un sujet. Étant majoritairement vécue lors de déplacements présents, futurs ou passés, la localisation est ainsi conceptualisée en tant que wayfinding : l’action de déterminer quelles voies ou trajets emprunter pour se rendre d’un point A à un point B. Ce mémoire est en réalité une problématisation ouverte qui vise à explorer et identifier certains enjeux qui sont au cœur des processus de localisation dans l’espace urbain montréalais. Si « [l]e fait humain par excellence », comme le souligne Leroi-Gouhran (1965) « est peut-être moins la création de l’outil que la domestication du temps et de l’espace » (p. 139), le fait d’habiter en un certain temps et en un certain espace est en soi une relation problématique de confiance. Le vivant et le non-vivant habitent des espaces aménagés qui sont continuellement transformés par leur détermination mutuelle. En partant du constat que l’environnement construit se déploie en étant produit et aménagé dans des dispositions où certains de nos gestes sont délégués, peut-on envisager être libre sans (se) faire confiance ?

Percepção Ambiental em Museus Paisagens de Arte Contemporânea: a legibilidade dos museus Inhotim/Brasil e em Serralves/Portugal avaliada pelo público/visitante

This thesis nalyzes the wayfinding in Landscape Museum of Contemporary Art (MPAC), based on the Institute of Contemporary Art CACI, Minas Gerais, Brazil and the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Serralves Foundation, Porto, Portugal. The study focuses on the interrelationship of the public/visitors with the landscape, architecture and contemporary art museums in these, in order to understand visual perception and apprehension of such an environment for their users. For both were confronted documentation (visual and written) and people talk. The main hypothesis put forward is that the audience/visitor MPAC appreciates the interrelationship between the natural environment (park/garden) and built environment (the works of contemporary art and the galleries), giving equal value to both. To complement this, a second hypothesis is that during the visit to MPACS, visitors define their paths spontaneously, but strongly influenced by existing visual indicators (maps, signage and striking landscape elements), which facilitate the readability of space, which also contribute to the offered services and the experiences of similar institutions. The analytical basis of the research used the concepts of legibility (LYNCH, 2009), wayfinding (GIBSON, 2009; ARTHUR, PASSINI, 2002; WEISMAN, 1982), Experiential Cotinnum (TUAN, 1985), Space Bound (CRUZ PINTO, 2007) and habitus (BOURDIEU, 1992). Methodologically was used qualitative research (DEMO 2000) by means of a case study (YIN, 2005; STAKE, 1999) and participant observation (WHYTE, 2005). In the two institutions interviews with researchers and curators, behavior observation and questionnaires from employees, trainees, monitors and the public/visitor of the two museums were performed. Although partially referende the initial hypothesis, the research showed that the public/visitor value appears more natural environments, they experience a greater intensity and in addition to the factors listed in the second case, your perception and definition of paths suffer significant influence of emotional relations established with space. Generally the audience/visitor adapts easily to different demands of contemporary art exhibition in the two museums and the built environment (park/garden and museum) interferes with your reading path during the visit, perceived by the public/visitor condition as a factor that favors the enjoyment of works on different mounts (wayfinding), though often become a factor that hinders the legibility of the building and its built environment

Transfer of spatial knowledge from a virtual environment to reality: Impact of route complexity and subject’s strategy on the exploration mode

The use of virtual reality as tool in the area of spatial cognition raises the question of the quality of learning transfer from a virtual to a real environment. It is first necessary to determine with healthy subjects, the cognitive aids that improve the quality of transfer and the conditions required, especially since virtual reality can be used as effective tool in cognitive rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of the exploration mode of virtual environment (Passive vs. Active) according to Route complexity (Simple vs. Complex) on the quality of spatial knowledge transfer in three spatial tasks. Ninety subjects (45 men and 45 women) participated. Spatial learning was evaluated by Wayfinding, sketch-mapping and picture classification tasks in the context of the Bordeaux district. In the Wayfinding task, results indicated that active learning in a Virtual Environment (VE) increased the performances compared to the passive learning condition, irrespective of the route complexity factor. In the Sketch-mapping task, active learning in a VE helped the subjects to transfer their spatial knowledge from the VE to reality, but only when the route was complex. In the Picture classification task, active learning in a VE when the route was complex did not help the subjects to transfer their spatial knowledge. These results are explained in terms of knowledge levels and frame/strategy of reference [SW75, PL81, TH82].

Learning in Virtual Worlds: Research and Applications

Three-dimensional (3D) immersive virtual worlds have been touted as being capable of facilitating highly interactive, engaging, multimodal learning experiences. Much of the evidence gathered to support these claims has been anecdotal but the potential that these environments hold to solve traditional problems in online and technology-mediated education—primarily learner isolation and student disengagement—has resulted in considerable investments in virtual world platforms like Second Life, OpenSimulator, and Open Wonderland by both professors and institutions. To justify this ongoing and sustained investment, institutions and proponents of simulated learning environments must assemble a robust body of evidence that illustrates the most effective use of this powerful learning tool. In this authoritative collection, a team of international experts outline the emerging trends and developments in the use of 3D virtual worlds for teaching and learning. They explore aspects of learner interaction with virtual worlds, such as user wayfinding in Second Life, communication modes and perceived presence, and accessibility issues for elderly or disabled learners. They also examine advanced technologies that hold potential for the enhancement of learner immersion and discuss best practices in the design and implementation of virtual world-based learning interventions and tasks. By evaluating and documenting different methods, approaches, and strategies, the contributors to Learning in Virtual Worlds offer important information and insight to both scholars and practitioners in the field. AU Press is an open access publisher and the book is available for free in PDF format as well as for purchase on our website: http://bit.ly/1W4yTRA