A Cognitive Observer-Based Landmark-Preference Model

Excerpt

Landmarks, objects for orientation, are frequently used by humans (as well as many other species) for orientation and for navigation to known and unknown rural and urban environments. In 1960 Lynch [4] defined landmarks (in cities) as an important research topic. Ever since, landmarks have been within the research focus of architects, computer scientists, psychologists and many others. Sorrows and Hirtle [9] defined three relevant landmark aspects which are essential for using landmarks in navigation, called saliences. Raubal and Winter [5] as well as Klippel and Winter [3] presented a mathematical model in which they describe the relation between these three saliences and presented first empirical evidences for their assumptions. Additionally, the aspect of visibility was introduced (in its simplest form: how much of an object is visible to the observer). The model thus includes the three saliences, visual (e.g. color), semantic (meaning/typicality) and structural (location), and the visibility. It is formalized as: with s _t  = total salience, v = visibility, w = weighting factors, s = saliences and _v  = visual, _s  = semantic and _u  = structural. …