Effects of Positioning Aids on Understanding the Relationship Between a Mobile Map and the Environment

Positioning technologies such as GPS enable mobile map applications to display a symbol representing an estimation of a user's location on a mobile map, therefore acting as a positioning aid. Previous research on the cognitive processes involved in map reading suggests that map readers need at least two map-environment points (objects that are visualized on the map and perceived in the environment) for determining their location on a map. Hence, the positioning aid alone does not provide enough information for self-location. Using a field experiment, we assessed the effect of representing the user's location on a map on the cognitive processes involved in self- location. The results show that positioning aids guide the search for map-environment points and narrow the area on the map that must be scanned for self-location.