Full Article:

How do one’s emotions, mental state, and the spatial environment interact? Interdisciplinary research methods in architecture and neuroscience can be used to examine the interrelated factors of mental load, sensory cues, emotions, and memory in wayfinding. The objective is to propose a biometric methodology for quantifying the emotional and cognitive experience of wayfinding, and to present a pilot experiment on the impact of mental load on wayfinding. The methodology collected biometric (electrodermal activity, electroencephalogram, heart rate, accelerometer), visuospatial (GPS, camera), and interview data. The pilot study revealed a new category of sensory cues used by individuals to wayfind. Identified as “breadcrumbs” and associated with subjective emotions, researchers propose an addition to Kevin Lynch’s elements of the built environment that contribute to cognitive mapping. The aim is to invite a rethinking of the typically precedent-based nature of spatial design, bolstering the discussion with individual experience data to encourage evidence-based design.