Social Wayfinding

Social wayfinding refers to the capacity to perceive and navigate the dynamics of a social scene, not just its physical layout. It covers identifying who is present, where they are oriented, whether they are available for interaction, what they are doing, and how they are reacting through facial expression and body language. For blind and low vision people, social wayfinding is often inaccessible because the underlying signals are visual; the resulting "cuelessness" can lead to social isolation and passive roles in group settings. Assistive technology research distinguishes social wayfinding from spatial wayfinding (route-finding, obstacle avoidance) and from object recognition, because it requires real-time, context-sensitive interpretation of human behavior rather than static labels of the environment.