Data for: Cognitive Load and Cross-Group Inclusivity in Vertically Written Mongolian and Horizontally Arranged Chinese Bilingual Wayfinding Signs: An Eye-Tracking Experimental Study

Indoor pedestrian navigation in multi-ethnic hospitals faces information inequity risks from mismatched bilingual signage layouts between vertical Mongolian script and horizontal Chinese characters. Existing traffic psychology research on multilingual signs mostly focuses on roadside driving, lacking eye-tracking evidence for indoor mixed-script pedestrian signage. This study adopts a 2×2×3×2 mixed eye-tracking experiment to explore cognitive load and inclusive performance of Mongolian–Chinese hospital wayfinding signs. Two cognitive load indicators were constructed to separate intrinsic cost of vertical Mongolian script from extraneous load induced by typographic layout. Results show that Mongolian pedestrians bear significantly higher cognitive load during navigation, with nearly 43% of the load gap originating from the inherent vertical visual search mechanism. Sans-serif fonts shorten visual target searching latency, and the 1.0 font size ratio achieves optimal cross-ethnic information equity. Low-proportion marginal Mongolian decorative patterns impose no significant extra cognitive interference while improving cultural belonging for Mongolian users. Although serif fonts achieve higher overall identification efficiency, they fail to balance cognitive equity across ethnic groups. This research extends feature integration theory into a three-stage visual processing framework for pedestrian sign search and establishes a quantitative assessment standard for mixed vertical–horizontal multilingual navigation facilities in indoor public spaces.