# Exploring the Use of Landmarks to Aid Pedestrian Wayfinding
## 5 Discussion  
Hypothesis 1, predicting that the LM Group would outperform the GM Group in regard to accurate route-following, was clearly not supported: all participants in the LM and GM Groups were able to follow the routes described with relative ease, making few errors and hesitations. Even though the route length and complexity for the LM and GM Groups were modeled on previous research [2; 9; 10], the route was evidently too easy to allow discrimination in the performance of the two groups. To rectify this, a longer and more complex route should be used in subsequent studies to observe more errors and hesitations when route-following. The PM Group generally chose a simple route with two turns, which was easily followed. According to the confirmed hypothesis 2, the GM Group was more successful at drawing the route on an unlabeled map than the LM Group. In fact, almost all participants in the GM Group were able to draw their routes 100% accurately, resulting in extremely few errors and also confirming that the route was likely too short and easy to follow. Participants in the LM Group drew wrong turns more frequently, and their drawing errors were mainly connected with the large park encountered along the route where three turns were required to navigate around it. A possible reason for this behavior is that the attention of the LM Group when following the route was focused on landmarks, which were predominantly conspicuous buildings (singular points in the region). But as the park was also a landmark (an area in the region), perhaps too much time was spent focused on the park as a landmark when wayfinding rather than on the routes around the park. This also suggests that large area-based landmarks may not perform as well for wayfinding as more point-like landmarks. It is also interesting that the LM Group were able to draw the route--certainly not as accurately as the GM Group--even though they used no map depicting the route. As the PM Group walked different routes, a direct comparison was not possible, but it can be noted that the common two-turn route selected by this group was drawn with almost 100% accuracy. Avoiding complexity, the simplest route will always be the easiest to draw. Another factor contributing to the high performance of the route drawing may have been the scale of the map used. The route sat comfortably in the center of the map area, meaning that participants did not have to work too hard to locate the route area on the map before drawing the route. It appears the pre-set route was too easy to follow, but the length of the route and the number of turns used are close to the mean number of those attributes in similar wayfinding studies [2; 9; 10; 33]. Regarding locating landmarks, the LM Group located more total landmarks correctly than participants in the GM and PM groups, confirming hypothesis 3, and all three groups located more on-route landmarks than off-route landmarks, confirming hypothesis 4. This makes sense, as the LM and GM Groups followed the same route. Consistent with traditional memory studies, the primacy effect for the LM Group provides evidence that most attention was paid to the first two on-route landmarks and, to a lesser extent, to the last two on-route landmarks, thereby resulting in a weak recency effect as well. Once the first few items (actual landmarks) had been identified by comparing these with the photographs shown on the navigation aid, such comparisons were all they needed to reassure themselves that they were on the right track. With 16 landmarks thus shown, fewer attentional resources were available, although the recent effect suggests that participants still attempted to commit all landmarks to memory. Alas, only the last two stood out, as these were fresh in the participants' memories. It is also noteworthy that the first and last on-route landmarks were the largest used in this study, which might have further enhanced both the primacy and the recency effects.