When landmarks stand out: Enhancing the saliency of indoor landmarks with virtual icons facilitates spatial learning

Repository containing materials, data, and analyses code to support the findings of this real-world indoor navigation study assisted by augmented reality. Abstract: People often struggle to find their way in complex indoor environments, largely because they lack visually salient landmarks. This study investigated whether enhancing the visual saliency of indoor landmarks can support spatial learning during assisted navigation. In an augmented reality study, participants followed a real-world indoor route through connected, multi-floor campus buildings, with decision-point landmarks (freestanding vs. wall-mounted) either augmented with virtual icons or left unaltered (control). Results revealed above-chance landmark and route knowledge across landmark types and conditions. Importantly, the virtual icons condition improved overall landmark knowledge and both landmark and route knowledge for the less salient wall-mounted features. Taken together, these findings highlight that enhancing landmark visual saliency supports spatial learning during indoor navigation assisted by augmented reality.