Differentiating Everyday Map Tasks: Unique Attention-Related Eye Movements and Electrophysiological Signatures of Map Use

Cartographic maps are ubiquitous in spatial activities such as localization, navigation, and travel exploration. Understanding how the map users interact with maps remains a challenge, however. Research to date has focused on the overt aspects of map users’ cognitive processes, using conventional empirical methods and eye tracking, but the covert aspects (e.g., brain activity) have been largely neglected. In this study, participants used Google Maps for four everyday tasks: global search, distance comparison, route following, and route planning. We recorded and analyzed users’ attention-related visual (eye movement measures by eye tracking) and electrophysiological (fixation-evoked P3-ERP and task-induced alpha/theta ERD/ERS by scalp electroencephalograms) responses. Results demonstrated efficient visual processing and expanded spatial exploration in global search and distance comparison tasks. Interestingly, more attentional resources were devoted to recognizing whether information matches or not in global search tasks, as shown by the larger P3 component for the map target. In contrast, route following and route planning tasks required intensified attention for information decoding and complicated cognitive processes, focusing predominantly on pertinent narrow map regions. Our findings highlight that the visual and electrophysiological signatures effectively capture the heterogeneity of user attention during different map tasks.