Abstract
Human path-planning operates differently from deterministic AI-based path-planning algorithms due to the decay and distortion in a human's spatial memory and the lack of complete scene knowledge. Here, we present a cognitive model of path-planning that simulates human-like learning of unfamiliar environments, supports systematic degradation in spatial memory, and distorts spatial recall during path-planning. We propose a Dynamic Hierarchical Cognitive Graph (DHCG) representation to encode the environment structure by incorporating two critical spatial memory biases during exploration: categorical adjustment and \sequence order effect. We then extend the ‘`Fine-To-Coarse’' (FTC), the most prevalent path-planning heuristic, to incorporate spatial uncertainty during recall through the DHCG. We conducted a lab-based Virtual Reality (VR) experiment to validate the proposed cognitive path-planning model and made three observations: (1) a statistically significant impact of sequence order effect on participants' route-choices, (2) approximately three hierarchical levels in the DHCG according to participants' recall data, and (3) similar trajectories and significantly similar wayfinding performances between participants and simulated cognitive agents on identical path-planning tasks. Furthermore, we performed two detailed simulation experiments with different FTC variants on a Manhattan-style grid. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed cognitive path-planning model successfully produces human-like paths and can capture human wayfinding's complex and dynamic nature, which traditional AI-based path-planning algorithms cannot capture.
Original language | English (US) |
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Journal | IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics |
DOIs | |
State | Accepted/In press - 2022 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Software
- Signal Processing
- Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
- Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
Keywords
- Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering
- Cognitive Path-Planning
- Computational modeling
- Data models
- Distortion
- Fine-To-Course
- Games
- Human Wayfinding
- Navigation
- Solid modeling
- Spatial Memory
- Task analysis