Abstract
How do people solve navigational problems when other people are present? We asked participants to move through a virtual room, with the goal of reaching a door, while avoiding an obstacle. In each block of trials, participants traversed six rooms. In three rooms the obstacle was a virtual human agent, who was placed at three different, predetermined positions and orientations. In three rooms the obstacle was a chair, with otherwise the same setup. The order of rooms was randomized within a block. In the first orientation condition, the obstacle (chair or virtual agent) faced the participant directly, while in the second condition it faced away, turned 45 degrees toward the right of the participant. The trials for each condition were clustered in the two separate blocks. Results show that when the obstacle faced the participants, participants favored moving to the right of the obstacle (BF_10 > 6.4E5). This preference was present with both human and inanimate obstacles (BF_10 =1.0). But when the obstacle was facing away, toward the right, this preference disappeared (BF_10=0.36). Most interestingly, this preference was now mediated by the nature of the obstacle: participants showed greater preference for passing to the left of virtual human obstacles facing to the right than for inanimate obstacles facing to the right (BF_10=4.3). This finding was supported by a Bayesian t-test comparing the number of times participants choose to move to their right in the two conditions (BF_10=4.6). Overall, we found that participants tended to navigate so as to avoid crossing in front of a virtual human agent, but showed no such preference for inanimate objects. This type of preference illustrates the influence of social factors on wayfinding.