Breadcrumb Navigation: Further Investigation of Usage
http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/52/breadcrumb.htm

Rogers, Bonnie Lida and Barbara S. Chaparro
Usability News
2003

Abstract:

There are three different types of breadcrumbs represented in websites – path, attribute, and location. Path breadcrumb trails are dynamic in that any given page will show a different breadcrumb trail based on how the user reached the page. Attribute breadcrumb trails display meta information showing many different trails representing several possible paths to reach the page.