Landmarks on the move: Producing and understanding references to moving landmarks

Abstract

There is a general agreement that landmarks in route directions should be perceptually salient and stable objects. Yet, other attributes, such as (animated) motion, can also attract visual attention and make entities salient. In the present study, we investigate if and when speakers refer to moving entities in route directions and how listeners evaluate such instructions. We asked speakers to watch short videos of different crossroads with and without moving landmarks and give directions to listeners, who in turn had to choose a street on which to continue (Experiment 1) or choose the instruction they most preferred among three route directions (Experiment 2). Results reveal that speakers mentioned moving entities, especially when the trajectory was informative for the place where a turn should be taken (Experiment 1). Listeners had no problem understanding instructions with moving landmarks (Experiment 1). Yet, participants chose instructions with stable landmarks more often (Experiment 2). These results are discussed in relation to automatic route directions generation.