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Turn right or turn left? Heuristic of adhering to the direction of destination
Author(s) -
Yang Jisien,
Schwaninger Adrian
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1741
Subject(s) - parallelogram , heuristics , rectangle , heuristic , selection (genetic algorithm) , computer science , psychology , artificial intelligence , mathematical optimization , mathematics , geometry , robot
It has been found that humans not only tend to avoid the middle routes and prefer the peripheral routes among multiple choices, but also rely on the ‘initial segment strategy’ to select the route. In this paper, we propose a new heuristic which humans apply during route selection: Participants prefer the route whose initial direction lies in the direction of their final destination, while avoiding the route whose initial direction does not. Four maps were designed. The pathways, on different maps, constituted a parallelogram, a rectangle and a square. Pedestrians were instructed to select a route from an origin to a destination on one of the maps. The results confirm the application of the newly proposed heuristic. Other possible factors, such as handedness, route angles and occurrence of turns were excluded. Moreover, the heuristics of deferring decision and relying on initial straightness are not supported. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.