Spatial Cognition And Way-finding In Underground Public Spaces

The development and utilization of city underground space have been an essential way of becoming a large city. At the same time, more and more people come to feel disorientated, lost, and uncomfortable when they are in the underground. Therefore, many outstanding scholars nationwide focus their research on the design of visualized navigation system in the underground. However, few do study in way-finding and space recognition. This paper starts from researching on way-finding, tries to explore the individual understanding model of underground way-finding and space recognition and focuses on the design of public underground space with the attempt of establishing a nice atmosphere of underground way-finding. This paper takes Xinjiekou public underground space in Nanjing as an experiment place, researching on way-finding behavior, features of space recognition model, "Alignment Effect" in way-finding and difference between female and male recognition capability. It is expected in this paper that highly efficient underground space recognition model should be proposed and designing suggestions on way-finding and space recognition should be given.The paper includes six paragraphs:Paragraph 1:Introduction. The author introduces research background and meaning, specifies research procedure and methodology, summarizes national and international research status, and develops research methods and outlines.Paragraph 2:Research on way-finding and related ideas. The author firstly explains the concept and development of way-finding, and then details space recognition and map recognition and relevant concept, as well as their relationship with way-finding. Finally, through researching on these concepts, the author analyzes important elements of way-finding and sets a theoretical foundation to following paragraphs.Paragraph 3:Public underground space and recognition behavior. Based on the last paragraph, the relationship between space recognition and way-finding has been specified. This paragraph studies features related to individual way-finding recognition in the underground space from the point of view of space recognition. The author emphasizes concept definition, developmental process, space forms, individual psychology and behaviors, further paving the way for the research direction and the following experiment.Paragraph 4:way-finding research analysis on Xinjiekou underground public space. Based on the above three paragraph, the research site has been selected and defined as Xinjiekou underground public space. At first, the author performs the research of Xinjiekou current situation and analyze way-finding. Secondly experiment has been designed. Then the staff performs a pre-test in the workplace in advance. Finally, the experiment contents have been amended based on the results of pre-test to ensure that the formal experiment would be conducted smoothly.Paragraph 5:Xinjiekou underground public space way-finding experiment. This paragraph includes three experiments, mainly researching on the feature of individual understanding model of underground way-finding and space recognition, "Alignment Effect" in way-finding and difference between female and male recognition capability. By analyzing the data of the experiment results, the author tries to discover and verify the contents of each section above.Paragraph 6: Conclusion and suggestion. The conclusion would be given based on the experiments in the previous paragraph while the features of individual understanding model of underground way-finding and space recognition would be further summarized. Finally in this paper that strategic designing suggestions on underground public space designing should be given based on the above findings on way-finding rules and features.