Why does walking through a long indoor maze of identical pale-yellow corridors under fluorescent lights, with few landmarks, make people uneasy?

Answer: It erases the mental map you rely on to stay oriented

It erases the mental map you rely on to stay oriented ✓ — Correct. People build a mental map from landmarks, signs, and distinct turns; when corridors repeat, that map cannot form. Indoor wayfinding reviews find that complex or poorly differentiated layouts reduce performance and increase errors. Without a reliable map, you cannot tell whether you are progressing, looping, or getting farther from an exit.

Long enclosed hallways make people feel trapped — Plausible, because long enclosed corridors can feel oppressive, and some people do get anxious in them. But claustrophobia is about being trapped in a tight or enclosed space, while this maze's problem is repetition and missing landmarks. The stronger effect is that you lose the mental map telling you where you are and how to get out.

Echoes in empty halls make distances hard to judge — Plausible, because empty corridors do carry echoes and sound can be hard to localize. But echoes are not the main reason a repeated layout disorients: they might blur distance a little, yet they do not explain why you lose track of where you are relative to an exit. The repeated geometry removes the landmarks and distinct turns that would let you answer that question.