Finding Your Way: The inuence of global spatial intelligibility and eld-of-view on a waynding task

Research derived from architecture and urban planning suggests that the global conguration of space, known as spatial intelligibility, can reliably predict how eciently a person navigates through an environment. Spatial intelligibility has been found to inuence waynding routes, pause times, and gaze behaviours (Conroy-Dalton, 2001) throughout the waynding process. However, recent studies have emerged suggesting that the shape of the local space, specically intersections (Meilinger, Franz, & Bültho, 2009), is also capable of inuencing pause time, route choice, and landmark memory. The objective of the current study was to investigate the inuence of global spatial intelligibility and availability of local perceptual information on overall waynding eciency. The Task: Participants were asked to navigate through one of two novel virtual environments (high intelligibility / low intelligibility) to a landmark located near the center of the environment (marked by the red circle), and then return to the starting position. Participants navigated one of the two environments wearing one of two head-mounted displays:- Wide5 (oered a 150 degree horizontal eld-of-view)- nVisor SX (oered a 60 degree horizontal eld-of-view