WA YFINDING THEORY AND RESEARCH: THE NEED FOR A NEW

APPROACH

MARK BLADES
Department ofPsychology
University of Sheffield
Sheffield SlO 2TN United Kingdom

ABS1RACT. Wayfmding is the ability to learn a route through the environment This paper considers the
theories (Piaget, Inhelder and Szeminska, 1960; Siegel and White, 1975) which have been put forward to
explain the development of wayfinding and which have provided a framework for much of the related
empirical research. It is argued that the evidence doe,s not clearly support those theories, and it is suggested
that recent research in other areas of cognitive development can offer alternative approaches to the
consideration of how wayfmding abilities develop.

1. Introduction

For the purposes of this paper, wayfinding will be defined as the ability to learn and remember a
route through the environment. Route knowledge is, of course, not an isolated component of
environmental awareness and wayfinding in familiar environments will depend on a person's
overall understanding of the area and that person's plans and intentions when deciding how to
travel between several different places (see Garling, 1989; Garling, Book, and Lindberg, 1984;
Hayes-Roth and Hayes-Roth, 1979; Smith, Pellegrino, and Golledge, 1982). But to keep this
review within manageable proportions I will concentrate on the research which has considered how
a single route is learnt, and the emphasis will be on how children learn a novel route - partly
because the majority of relevant studies have involved young subjects, and partly because of my
own interests as a developmental psychologist.
The first part of the paper (section 2) will consider in some detail the theories of environmental
development put forward by Piaget (piaget and Irthelder, 1956; Piaget, Irthelder and Szeminska,
1960) and by Siegel and White (1975). These theories have been influential and have provided the
starting point and framework for much of the research which will be discussed. It will be pointed
out that that the theories are not as clearly expressed as is sometimes implied in the literature, but
they do nonetheless, offer particular hypotheses about the development of wayfinding, and in
section 5 the hypotheses will be considered in the light of the empirical evidence.
There are already a number of recent and extensive reviews of the literature on environmental
cognition and wayfinding (see Cohen, 1985; Golledge, 1987; Heft and Wohiwill, 1985; Spencer,
Blades and Morsley, 1989), and rather than attempt to duplicate those reviews, this paper will
concentrate on those aspects of the environmental research which can be considered in the context
of contemporary approaches and themes within developmental psychology (see sections 6).
137
D. M. Mark and A. U. Frank (eds.), Cognitive and LingUistic Aspects o/Geographic Space, 137-165.
© 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
138

2. Theories of Environmental Cognition

A large proportion of the research into children and adults wayfinding has been carried out
explicitly or implicitly within the theoretical frameworKs of environmental cognition put forwanl by
Piaget and by Siegel and White (1975). The latter theory is derived directly from Piaget's original
theory, but because it differs from Piaget's in several important respects I will give separate
summaries of the two theories. The underlying assumption behind both is that from repeated direct
experience in the environment an individual progresses through a series of stages of environmental
knowledge culminating in an overall understanding of the spatial relationships between all the
places within that environment. Such an understanding has been referred to by a variety of tenns
'full configurational' (Piaget), survey knowledge (Shemyakin, 1961; Siegel and White, 1975),
vector knowledge (Byrne, 1979), or more generally as a cognitive map.

2.1. PIAGETS THEORY

Piaget tested children's knowledge of their own home area by asking children of different ages to
construct a model of the area (from material which was provided, such as toy houses and 'pieces of
wood' to represent parKs. public squares and bridges) and to draw a plan of a route from school to
a familiar landmark (in a sand-tray or on paper). The children were asked about their models or
plans as they produced them.
Piaget divided children's perfonnance into three stages. In stage I children have little
understanding beyond a general sense of direction and the ability to recognize individual places in
the environment. In stage II Piaget makes the distinction between perfonnance based on direct
activity in the environment and perfonnance which is dependent on a mental representation (Le.
memory) of the environment. As an example of perfonnance based on direct activity in space
Piaget points out that children in stage II are often capable of finding their own way along a familiar
route and as an example of perfonnance based on a mental representation Piaget refers to children
describing a route from memory.
Piaget suggests that in stage II children base their descriptions of a route on their memory not of
the environment as such, but their memory of their movement through the environment. For
example, he quotes one child (aged 6 years) describing a familiar route 'I go straight along, 1 tum
there. I go straight along again, I tum there, then 1 keep going straight and 1 tum once more'
(Piaget et ai, 1960. 11). This particular child did not refer to a single landmm along the route.
Other children drew plans of a known route, but when asked to place specific landmarks along
the route they were unable to do so accurately. These results led Piaget to argue that 'in the process
of remembering their own actions, these subjects are led to mention landmarks. But these are
simply tacked on to their recollections ... Accordingly, astonishing as it may seem, subjects fail to
respect the true positions of landmarks and do not even preserve the order in which they come to
them' (Piaget et ai, 1960, 12).
In stage lIlA children are able to describe more about a route and will often include landmarKs at
choice points along the route, but Piaget noted that children in this stage tended to place the
landmarks in sub-groups. The landmarks in each sub-group along a route might be accurately
positioned relative to each other, but the different sub-groups were not accurately related to each
other. It is not until stage 11m that children produce a route as 'a coherent whole' with all the
landmarKs placed in relationship to each other. Children's specific ability to describe routes in the
last stage corresponds with their perfonnance in drawing plans. Piaget refers to lIlA as the stage