Boundary Strategies Enhance Spatial Cognitive Efficiency in Indoor Navigation: A VR-Based Investigation

Effective indoor navigation remains a challenge in complex built environments such as hospitals and airports, where disorientation can lead to anxiety, inefficiency, and safety risks. While prior research has focused on outdoor wayfinding or single-metric performance assessments, few studies have examined spatial cognitive efficiency—a multidimensional metric defined as the standardized difference between spatial knowledge acquisition (P) and cognitive resource expenditure (R). In this study, P was derived from expert-rated sketch maps that captured participants’ environmental understanding, while R was indexed by navigation path length, which reflected their exploration effort. This study employed virtual reality to investigate how individual differences and environmental cues shape cognitive efficiency during indoor navigation. Thirty participants explored a high-fidelity virtual environment while behavioral, sketch-based, and questionnaire data were collected. Results revealed a non-significant linear correlation between P and R, consistent with cognitive efficiency as a distinct construct. High-efficiency participants relied more on boundary cues and exhibited “low-speed, short-distance” exploration patterns, whereas landmark-dependent strategies showed lower stability. These findings underscore the theoretical and practical value of cognitive efficiency as a multidimensional metric, offering evidence-based guidance for designing cognitively supportive indoor navigation systems.