Landmark recognition: What makes a landmark familiar?

Previous research has found variation in navigation ability among healthy individuals. Instead of focusing on individual differences, the current online experiment compared performance across individual landmarks. Since landmarks work as reference points, navigation could be facilitated by considering their appearance and placement. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether perceptual saliency and the serial-position effect influence landmark recognition in healthy individuals. It was expected that perceptually salient landmarks with a significant height, a complex shape or a salient location would be perceived as more familiar than neutral landmarks. It was also expected that because of the serial-position effect, landmarks presented first and last should be perceived as more familiar than those in the middle. In total, 63 participants, aged between 18 and 35, completed the experiment. Participants saw a navigation video followed by a landmark recognition task. They had to...Show morePrevious research has found variation in navigation ability among healthy individuals. Instead of focusing on individual differences, the current online experiment compared performance across individual landmarks. Since landmarks work as reference points, navigation could be facilitated by considering their appearance and placement. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether perceptual saliency and the serial-position effect influence landmark recognition in healthy individuals. It was expected that perceptually salient landmarks with a significant height, a complex shape or a salient location would be perceived as more familiar than neutral landmarks. It was also expected that because of the serial-position effect, landmarks presented first and last should be perceived as more familiar than those in the middle. In total, 63 participants, aged between 18 and 35, completed the experiment. Participants saw a navigation video followed by a landmark recognition task. They had to judge whether landmarks were “new” or “familiar” (i.e., shown in the video). For familiar landmarks, they rated the level of familiarity on a 5-point Likert scale. The results showed that landmark recognition was affected by perceptual saliency, which increased the chances that landmarks were recognized as familiar. Salient landmarks were also rated higher in familiarity than neutral landmarks. The findings suggested that the last landmarks were perceived as the most familiar, which provided evidence for the recency effect. However, an overlap between saliency and the serial-position effect might have affected these results. Thus, more research is needed to confirm whether the serial-position effect affects landmark recognition. In conclusion, both saliency and the serial-position effect should be considered when designing landmarks for different environments. Human navigation could be facilitated by including these factors in guidelines for landmark design.Show less

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Landmark recognition: What makes a landmark familiar?