The impact of moving entities on wayfinding performance

Wayfinding requires monitoring movements in the environment, in addition to identifying stable landmarks. The current study investigated how moving entities impact wayfinding. Experiment 1 evaluated the effects of moving entities that were presented during the acquisition but not during retrieval. Experiment 2 examined the effect of presenting moving entities during retrieval that were not presented during initial learning. Experiments 3 and 4 examined whether movement per se or attention directed to movement accounted for the effects of moving entities. We found that moving entities disrupted wayfinding more if they were presented during the acquisition stage and removed during retrieval. No disruption was observed when they were presented during the retrieval stage after learning had occurred. Entities impaired wayfinding performance the most when they were both moving and being attended. Our study demonstrated the importance of studying moving entities in wayfinding and has implications for designing better wayfinding training programs.