Cultural differences in providing wayfinding directions

The research study described in the present paper is the development of a previous study by Hund, Haney and Seanor (2008), exploring the effect of culture and recipient perspective on the frequency of providing several descriptive features in giving wayfinding directions. Presenting a fictitious model town with pictures of 17 landmarks and 29 streets, we asked 38 native Dutch speaking participants to provide wayfinding directions from one specific starting location to a verbally given destination in the model town. Based on the theoretical distinction between prototypical route and survey descriptions, directions were given to fictional addressees in route and survey situations