Abstract
Research on the characteristics of spatial cognition without vision is used to improve the design of indoor environments to be safer for blind and visually handicapped persons. A fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) decision mechanism is presented for modeling path planning strategies adopted by blind travelers including wall-following, and shortcutting through the environment. A statistical case based reasoning (CBR) strategy is introduced for anticipating the points of switch between the two mentioned behaviours along the path. The combination of CBR and FCM modules provided a robust model of decision making which can be used for predicting blind motions. In this research, 51 eye-masked subjects contributed for obtaining the path patterns and for validating the results obtained using the proposed path prediction approach.
