Seeing where you are heading: Integrating environmental and egocentric reference frames in cardinal direction judgments

This research focused on how people coordinate the environmental reference frame of a map with the egocentric reference frame of the forward field of view to make cardinal direction judgments. In 3 studies, reference frame misalignment was found to slow response time for cardinal direction judgments and also markedly decrease accuracy. The studies also showed that people often use a nonrotational, analytic strategy for cardinal direction judgments that has not been identified for other navigational tasks, and that interface aids that improve other navigational tasks seem ineffective for cardinal direction judgments. These findings lead to the recommendation that interface aids for improving cardinal direction judgments should integrate heading information from the environmental reference frame into the egocentric frame (forward view).