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Abstract

Background: Wayfinding concerns the ability to get from A to B, one of the most fundamental behavioural problems we face on a daily basis. Typically, humans show large variation in wayfinding performance as well as in the strategies employed, even within relatively homogenous samples such as university students.
Aim: This symposium aims to further our understanding of human wayfinding behavior, by investigating the factors that contribute to such individual differences in performance and strategy selection.
Approach: We address individual differences in wayfinding behavior from a number of different viewpoints: First, we will focus on the effect of age to see how wayfinding performance and strategy selection develops in young age and how it is affected by typical and atypical ageing. Secondly, we will look at effects of expertise,
specifically how orienteering experts and novices differ in their spatial abilities, spatial styles and environment representations. Finally, we will report on individual differences in the ability to correctly distinguish left from right and in the strategies used during the
acquisition of environmental knowledge. Bringing together wayfinding research from these different areas will allow us to highlight some of the factors that contribute to individual differences in wayfinding behaviour.