Sounds in the city: on the utility of acoustic landmarks

Most navigation systems rely heavily on visual landmarks like buildings and bridges, while largely overlooking acoustic landmarks. Research has primarily focused on visual landmarks in real-world environments and on acoustic landmarks in virtual settings, leaving a gap in understanding the potential of acoustic landmarks for real-world navigation. This study investigates the role of urban sounds as potential acoustic landmarks for pedestrian navigation. Eighteen participants completed a route-following task in an urban environment and evaluated a range of characteristic sounds in terms of how identifiable, audible, and helpful they are for navigation. Results show that certain sounds – such as auditory traffic lights for the blind and traffic-related sounds – were perceived as particularly helpful and useful. In contrast, sounds from conversations and fans were less audible and less helpful for navigation. Our findings suggest that incorporating select acoustic landmarks into navigation systems can be helpful and support wayfinding for users, noting that in this study, participants were deliberately limited to non-visual landmarks.