Search

In the era of smartphones, route-planning and navigation is supported by freely and globally available web mapping services, such as OpenStreetMap or Google Maps. These services provide digital maps, as well as route planning functions that visually highlight the suggested route in the map. Additionally, such digital maps contain landmark pictograms, i.e. representations of salient objects in the environment. These landmark representations are, amongst other reference points, relevant for orientation, route memory, and the formation of a cognitive map of the environment. The amount of visible landmarks in maps used for navigation and route planning depends on the width of the displayed margin areas around the route. The amount of further reference points is based on the visual complexity of the map. This raises the question how factors like the distance of landmark representations to the route and visual map complexity determine the relevance of specific landmarks for memorizing a route. In order to answer this question, two experiments that investigated the relation between eye fixation patterns on landmark representations, landmark positions, route memory and visual map complexity were carried out. The results indicate that the attentional processing of landmark representations gradually decreases with an increasing distance to the route, decision points and potential decision points. Furthermore, this relation was found to be affected by the visual complexity of the map. In maps with low visual complexity, landmark representations further away from the route are fixated. However, route memory was not found to be affected by visual complexity of the map. We argue that map users might require a certain amount of reference points to form spatial relations as a foundation for a mental representation of space. As maps with low visual complexity offer less reference points, people need to scan a wider area. Therefore, visual complexity of the area displayed in a map should be considered in navigation-oriented map design by increasing displayed margins around the route in maps with a low visual complexity. In order to verify our assumption that the amount of reference points not only affects visual attention processes, but also the formation of a mental representation of space, additional research is required., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Landmarks, objects in the environment used for orientation, navigation and the formation of cognitive maps are often represented in maps as pictograms. In order to support these tasks effectively and efficiently, landmark pictograms also need to be salient, as the map user needs to identify and process them quickly and easily. Two additional relevant characteristics for the usability of landmark pictograms are their meaningfulness and recognition performance. Meaningfulness is required to understand which categories of objects are represented by the pictograms. Ease of recognition prevents the necessity to consult a map repetitively and may support the formation of a cognitive map of the environment. In the present study, we investigated the relation between salience, meaningfulness and recognition performance of OpenStreetMap (OSM) pictograms and the potential effects of the visual complexity of pictograms on these usability characteristics. Salience was measured via eye fixations on specific pictograms, meaningfulness with an explicit continuous scale and recognition performance with a yes/no recognition memory paradigm. Statistical analyses showed that pictograms drew more visual attention if they were visually complex or if their meaning was inapprehensible or ambiguous. Less apprehensible pictograms were also recognized more often. Interestingly, the data indicated that longer fixations could lead to worse recognition performance. Long fixations on a pictogram may increase the likelihood of false recognition in subsequent situations where the pictogram is no longer valid or relevant. Based on the findings, we suggest balancing the meaningfulness and visual complexity of contiguous pictograms to enhance their recognition and to provide an optimal level of salience of single objects., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Knowing the correct location of a specific object learned from a (topographic) map is fundamental for orientation and navigation tasks. Spatial reference systems, such as coordinates or cardinal directions, are helpful tools for any geometric localization of positions that aims to be as exact as possible. Considering modern visualization techniques of multimedia cartography, map elements transferred through the auditory channel can be added easily. Audiovisual approaches have been discussed in the cartographic community for many years. However, the effectiveness of audiovisual map elements for map use has hardly been explored so far. Within an interdisciplinary (cartography-cognitive psychology) research project, it is examined whether map users remember object-locations better if they do not just read the corresponding place names, but also listen to them as voice recordings. This approach is based on the idea that learning object-identities influences learning object-locations, which is crucial for map-reading tasks. The results of an empirical study show that the additional auditory communication of object names not only improves memory for the names (object-identities), but also for the spatial accuracy of their corresponding object-locations. The audiovisual communication of semantic attribute information of a spatial object seems to improve the binding of object-identity and object-location, which enhances the spatial accuracy of object-location memory.

Cognitive representations of learned map information are subject to systematic distortion errors. Map elements that divide a map surface into regions, such as content-related linear symbols (e.g. streets, rivers, railway systems) or additional artificial layers (coordinate grids), provide an orientation pattern that can help users to reduce distortions in their mental representations. In recent years, the television industry has started to establish True-3D (autostereoscopic) displays as mass media. These modern displays make it possible to watch dynamic and static images including depth illusions without additional devices, such as 3D glasses. In these images, visual details can be distributed over different positions along the depth axis. Some empirical studies of vision research provided first evidence that 3D stereoscopic content attracts higher attention and is processed faster. So far, the impact of True-3D accentuating has not yet been explored concerning spatial memory tasks and cartography. This paper reports the results of two empirical studies that focus on investigations whether True-3D accentuating of artificial, regular overlaying line features (i.e. grids) and content-related, irregular line features (i.e. highways and main streets) in official urban topographic maps (scale 1/10,000) further improves human object location memory performance. The memory performance is measured as both the percentage of correctly recalled object locations (hit rate) and the mean distances of correctly recalled objects (spatial accuracy). It is shown that the True-3D accentuating of grids (depth offset: 5 cm) significantly enhances the spatial accuracy of recalled map object locations, whereas the True-3D emphasis of streets significantly improves the hit rate of recalled map object locations. These results show the potential of True-3D displays for an improvement of the cognitive representation of learned cartographic information.

To date, it has been shown that cognitive map representations based on cartographic visualisations are systematically distorted. The grid is a traditional element of map graphics that has rarely been considered in research on perception-based spatial distortions. Grids do not only support the map reader in finding coordinates or locations of objects, they also provide a systematic structure for clustering visual map information ("spatial chunks"). The aim of this study was to examine whether different cartographic kinds of grids reduce spatial distortions and improve recall memory for object locations. Recall performance was measured as both the percentage of correctly recalled objects (hit rate) and the mean distance errors of correctly recalled objects (spatial accuracy). Different kinds of grids (continuous lines, dashed lines, crosses) were applied to topographic maps. These maps were also varied in their type of characteristic areas (LANDSCAPE) and different information layer compositions (DENSITY) to examine the effects of map complexity. The study involving 144 participants shows that all experimental cartographic factors (GRID, LANDSCAPE, DENSITY) improve recall performance and spatial accuracy of learned object locations. Overlaying a topographic map with a grid significantly reduces the mean distance errors of correctly recalled map objects. The paper includes a discussion of a square grid's usefulness concerning object location memory, independent of whether the grid is clearly visible (continuous or dashed lines) or only indicated by crosses.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) recommends preserving research data for at least ten years. The DFG funded project LABIMI/F establishes an infrastructure for preservation, retrieval and reuse of biomedical research data based on grid/cloud computing technology for two applications a) genome and b) imaging data. The requirements for this infrastructure were determined during workshops with relevant stakeholders. Afterwards product evaluations were conducted and the relevant products were integrated into the infrastructure concept. In this paper, we address the suitability of our solution concerning the fulfillment of the requirements. It is shown that the solution satisfies five of the eight requirement categories completely and the other three categories partly. Furthermore, in order to prove the adherence to the widely accepted Open Archival Information System (OAIS) standard, we successfully performed a mapping of our technical components to the functional entities of the OAIS.

The current situation at many university medical centers regarding the management of biomedical research imaging data leaves much to be desired. In contrast to the recommendations of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Council of Sciences and Humanities regarding the professional management of research data, there are commonly many individual data pools for research data in each institute and the management remains the responsibility of the researcher. A possible solution for this situation would be to install local central repositories for biomedical research imaging data. In this paper, we developed a scenario based on abstracted use-cases for institutional research undertakings as well as collaborative biomedical research projects and analyzed the functional requirements that a local repository would have to fulfill. We determined eight generic categories of functional requirements, which can be viewed as a basic guideline for the minimum functionality of a central repository for biomedical research imaging data.

Research data management (RDM) is an important topic for biomedical research due to the issue of "bit rot". RDM aims to implement access to reliable digital data for local and distributed research groups. A key aspect for the understanding of data is the use of metadata. This understanding has been investigated on the basis of two use cases of the DFG project LABIMI/F: RDM for genome data and biomedical image data. The results show that metadata can improve research not only for others but also for the researcher himself. However, RDM is still far from integrating all biomedical data. In addition, RDM is not (yet) a valid approach for clinical trial data management.

Natural scientists such as physicists pioneered the sharing of computing resources, which led to the creation of the Grid. The inter domain transfer process of this technology has hitherto been an intuitive process without in depth analysis. Some difficulties facing the life science community in this transfer can be understood using the Bozeman's "Effectiveness Model of Technology Transfer". Bozeman's and classical technology transfer approaches deal with technologies which have achieved certain stability. Grid and Cloud solutions are technologies, which are still in flux. We show how Grid computing creates new difficulties in the transfer process that are not considered in Bozeman's model. We show why the success of healthgrids should be measured by the qualified scientific human capital and the opportunities created, and not primarily by the market impact. We conclude with recommendations that can help improve the adoption of Grid and Cloud solutions into the biomedical community. These results give a more concise explanation of the difficulties many life science IT projects are facing in the late funding periods, and show leveraging steps that can help overcoming the "vale of tears".