Abstract

Prior research on route descriptions does not reveal much about the relationship between mentally planning and describing routes, and the routes chosen when actually traveling. This paper addresses route choice in a familiar urban environment under three different conditions: walking the route, planning and describing the route for oneself, and planning and describing the route for an addressee unfamiliar with the environment. Results show that the chosen routes differ systematically with respect to efficiency, number of turns and streets, and street size. These findings reflect the impact of incremental optimization by perceptually based updating processes along with aspects of communicability and formulation for an addressee.