Strategies for orentation: the role of 3D landmark salience and map alignment

An experiment and eye movement study investigated the
strategies people use to orientate themselves in urban settings
using a streetmap. Previous studies have suggested that
the preferred strategy involves choosing salient landmarks to
match between the scene and the map. We presented stimuli
for which single-landmark matching was not the optimal strategy;
the only unambiguous information available for matching
was the map’s 2D geometry which could also be abstracted
from the scene. However, most participants still chose a
landmark-based strategy. We discuss the implications for cognitive
models, for understanding individual differences, and for
potentially improving map designs to aid orientation.∗