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    The Role of Contextual Info‐Marks in Navigating a Virtual Rural Environment


    Rousell, Adam, Jarvis, Claire H and Brunsdon, Chris (2016) The Role of Contextual Info‐Marks in Navigating a Virtual Rural Environment. Transactions in GIS, 20 (1). pp. 1-19. ISSN 1361-1682

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    Abstract

    Navigation is a task performed in both large and small scale environments. Landmarks within an environment are of great benefit to these navigational tasks, but in large rural environments such landmarks may be sparse. It has been shown that landmarks need not be purely visual and that a change in context for a feature can make it become a landmark against its surroundings (such as being provided with significant meaning). Such meaning could be added through personal experience or by informing the observer via some form of communication. To investigate the effects of providing such contextual information on navigational performance, experiments were conducted in a large rural virtual environment where the delivery method of the information was varied between onscreen and PDA display. Users were instructed to perform a route tracing navigation task. In some instances users were presented with textual information about specific locations within the environment which appeared when they were in the vicinity of the location. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed, with results indicating that although the actual performance in the task was not significantly improved, users felt that their performance was better and the task easier when they were presented with the contextual information.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: Contextual Info‐Marks; Navigation; Virtual Rural Environment;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering > Research Institutes > National Centre for Geocomputation, NCG
    Item ID: 10174
    Identification Number: 10.1111/tgis.12136
    Depositing User: Prof. Chris Brunsdon
    Date Deposited: 02 Nov 2018 18:11
    Journal or Publication Title: Transactions in GIS
    Publisher: Wiley
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mu.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/10174
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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