Wayfinding in Natural and Urban Environments: A Comparative Study

Wayfinding in a natural setting is one of the many complex processes human beings face when acting in the environment. Despite recent developments and applications of wayfinding in urban environments, little research has been oriented and applied to natural environments. The research presented in this article introduces an ontological and language-based modelling of human navigation in a natural setting. The experimental approach was applied to a foot orienteering race that has the advantage of being semantically rich and combined with cartographic support, enabling the study of the importance of landmarks, actions, and the role of the underlying nature of the land and topography. Experimental results are compared to those of studies conducted in urban environments and permit the identification of similarities and differences between wayfinding descriptions made in urban contexts and those made in natural contexts.

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