Route Descriptions: The Role of Intersection Type and Visual Clutter for Spatial Reference

New technological advances (e.g., Google Glasses) enable context aware pedestrian
navigation systems to generate instructions making use of all (variable
and stable) environmental information. We know little about how the visual
surroundings influence the turn-by-turn production of pedestrian navigation instructions. We address this issue by analyzing the effects of environment complexity on reference to landmarks and paths. In this study, complexity was operationalized as the intersection structure and the richness of details in the visual scene. Results show that route descriptions to contain more environmental information as the visual surrounding becomes more complex.