Comparing Picture and Video Prompting in Autonomous Indoor Wayfinding for Individuals with Cognitive Impairments

Abstract

A challenge to individuals with cognitive impairments in wayfinding is how to remain oriented, recall routines, and travel in unfamiliar areas in a way relying on limited cognitive capacity. According to psychological model of spatial navigation and the requirements of rehabilitation professionals, a novel wayfinding system is presented with an aim to increase workplace and life independence for people with traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, intellectual and developmental disabilities, schizophrenia, Down syndromes, and Alzheimer’s disease. An architecture is proposed based on Bluetooth tags and scanning PDAs. A prototype is built and tested in field experiments with real patients. Two modalities, video and picture prompts, were compared by 20 subjects with cognitive impairments. The experimental results show the computer–human interface is friendly and the capabilities of wayfinding are reliable. Video prompts performed better by 25–28% than picture prompts at the price of users feeling slightly more rushed.