IU study looks at how paths are formed

Footsteps from the past have never affected the present so much, according to a recent IU study.\nFormer President Dwight D. Eisenhower's theory of the way people walk was the basis of the placement of sidewalks on campuses around the country. During his was presidency at Columbia University, Eisenhower was asked how to best arrange the sidewalks so that campus buildings could be connected in the most efficient way.\nHis plan was simple: Plant grass seed, let the turf grow and check where footprints in the growth were the most prominent. From there, sidewalks were paved, and students and faculty used them everyday to get from one place to the next in the quickest amount of time.\nThe IU Percepts and Concepts Laboratory tested Eisenhower's theory. Professor Robert Goldstone, director of the Cognitive Science Program, and graduate student Michael Roberts conducted a group experiment to test where students walk in different places, Goldstone said.\nThe experiment showed with each path made, the same shoeprint marks became more defined. This trail typically led others to take steps in similar spots, which made the new man-made path more visible while also helping people arrive at their destinations in less time.\n"We were interested in the kind of paths that a group of people would form if they started with no paths, but with the motivation to take advantage of the paths made by others," Goldstone said. "Students might think about the paths that they take every day ... they reflect the legacy of thousands of other student travelers."\nAs Goldstone put it, there is a general principle that activity often leads to more activity. The current generation achieves what it does because it stands on the shoulders of the previous generation.\nTraditions in American culture have been formed by extending the innovations of predecessors. Current students are also leaving physical traces that will influence students for generations to come.\nAnother thread that prompted Goldstone's and Roberts' study was a combination of physics and mathematics. \n"We compared our participants' paths to the mathematical model and found that it did a great job of predicting the particular steps that our participants took, how path systems emerged over time and how paths varied depending upon the configuration of destinations," Goldstone said.\nJust because there is an advantage to a path for a group, Goldstone said, does not mean it will be found. He added that there needs to be a pioneer who will start the path. If there is no incentive for a pioneer to selflessly head off into no-man's land, then a great path might never be formed. The findings from their experiment suggest that certain navigational behaviors are facilitated while others are indirectly hindered.\n"We want a society that makes the most of the previous generation's path but is not locked into following it exactly," he said. "If the old paths are too strong and indelible, then future innovations are impeded"