A cross-cultural comparison of human wayfinding behavior using maps and written directions

To prove the existence of cultural diversity in human spatial cognition between Japanese and Americans by conducting a cross-cultural wayfinding experiment, 20 JP and 19 US university students were instructed to walk through a route on campus twice using either a map or a written direction and were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials used on a 7 grade scale after each trial. They were also asked to compare the usability of the two materials after completing the trials. Their errors and amount of time required were also measured. Quantitative analyses revealed the existence of cultural differences in the relative evaluation task. Although the actual performances did not show a significant effect. The results demonstrated that participants felt discomfort with the less familiar medium even when the wayfinding task was easy enough to follow. Such uneasiness may stem from the cultural schema of spatial descriptions to which they have been familiar. When the description style of provided material was not archetypal from the viewpoint of their shared cultural schema of geographic description, people tended to feel larger discomfort because of the mismatch.