Table Of ContentCognitive Mapping
Cognitive Mapping is a comprehensive account of all facets of cognitive
mapping research. This book provides an overview of the historical genesis
of the subject area, a description of the current states-of-play, and a 'map'
of what future research should investigate. Each chapter is divided into
three sections - 'past', 'present' and 'future'.
Topics that are covered include:
• the links between spatial behaviour and spatial decision
• learning a new environment
• spatial learning from maps and virtual environments
• learning space at different scales
• spatial learning across the life space
• the relationships between gender/visual impairment and spatial
cognition
This important work brings together specially commissioned chapters,
written by international academics from a variety of different disciplines,
to explore all the major theoretical and empirical strands of research devel
oped over the past forty years.
Rob Kitchin is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the National University
of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland. His research interests include cognitive geog
raphy, spatial behaviour, disability, cyberspace, and social geography.
Scott Freundschuh is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota,
Duluth, USA. His research interests include a wide range of topics concern
ing maps and spatial knowledge acquisition in children and adults.
Routledge Frontiers of Cognitive Science
Series Advisor Tim Valentine
1 Decision Making
Cognitive models and explanations
Edited by Rob Ranyard, W. Ray Crozier and Ola Svenson
2 The Nature of Concepts
Evolution, structure and representation
Edited by Philip Van Loocke
3 Evaluative Semantics
Cognition, language and ideology
Jean-Pierre Malrieu
4 Cognitive Mapping
Past, present and future
Edited by Rob Kitchin and Scott Freundschuh
Cognitive Mapping
Past, present and future
Edited by
Rob Kitchin and
Scott Freundschuh
London and New York
First published 2000
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Roudedge Inc.
270 Madison Ave, NewYorkNY 10016
Reprinted 2001, 2002
Transferred to Digital Printing 2006
Routledge iJ an imprint of the Taylor & FranciJ Group
© 2000 Rob Kitchin and Scocc Freundschuh
Typeset in Garamond by Florence Production Ltd,
Stoodleigh, Devon
All rights reserved. No pare of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
BritiJh Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congrm Cataloging in Publication Data
Kitchin, Rob.
Cognitive mapping: past, present, and future / Rob Kitchin and
Scott Freundschuh.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-20806-8
1. Cognitive maps (Psychology~ongresses. 2. Human information
processing--Congresses. 3. Spatial behavior--Congresses.
I. Freundschuh, Scott, 1957-. H. Tide.
BF314.K582000
153.7'52-<1c21 99-054176
ISBN 0-415-20806-8
Contents
List off igures and tables vu
Contributors IX
1 Cognitive mapping 1
Rob Kitchin and Scott Freundschuh
2 Collecting and analysing cognitive mapping data 9
Rob Kitchin
3 Levels and structure of spatial knowledge 24
Barbara Tversky
4 Cognitive mapping and spatial decision-making 44
Tommy Giiding and Reginald G. Gol/edge
5 Route learning and wayfinding 66
Edward H. Comell and C. Donald Heth
6 Understanding and learning maps 84
Robert Lloyd
7 Understanding and learning virtual spaces 108
Patrick Peruch, Florence Gaunet, Catherine Thinus-Blanc
and]a ck Loomis
8 Micro- and macro-scale environments 125
Scott Freundschuh
9 Cognitive mapping in childhood 147
David H. Ut tal and Lisa S. Tan
VI Contents
10 Ageing and spatial behaviour in the elderly adult 166
K.c. Kirasic
11 A view of space through language 179
Holly A. T aylor
12 Sex, gender, and cognitive mapping 197
Carole M. Self and Reginald G. Golledge
13 Cognitive mapping without visual experience 221
Simon Ungar
14 The future of cognitive mapping research 249
Rob Kitchin and Scott Freundschuh
Index 264
Figures and tables
Figures
2.1 The effects of aggregation 16
4.1 Stages of spatial decision-making 46
4.2 A hierarchy of spatial decisions 47
4.3 Hypothetical process of making single or multiple choices
of places 48
6.1 The cartographic communication process 85
6.2 Map reading is an integration and synthesis of bottom-up
and top-down information 91
6.3 (a) The forty-two points from the cartographic map of
Texas; (b) learned by the Kohenen neural network and
represented in the Kohenen layer as a self-organized
cognitive map; (c) the same forty-two points aggregated
from sketch maps made by fifteen geography graduate
students 100
8.1 Typical map by geographers and psychologists 126
9.1 The design and results of Hermer and Spelke's (1996)
studies 152
9.2 The 'dog' figure used by Uttal et al. (1999) 155
9.3 The alternate, meaningless figure used by Uttal et al. (1999) 156
10.1 Percentage correct at three levels of expertise in different
test conditions 171
10.2 Performance differences in relation to test conditions
(percentage correct) for the elderly adults 172
10.3 Performance differences in relation to test conditions
(percentage correct) for the young adults 173
11.1 Example of object-to-object relations where spatial terms,
such as left are ambiguous without knowledge of the
reference frame used 183
11.2 Example stimuli from ERP study examining spatial
reference frame. Relative and intrinsic frames conflict
in example 185
VI11 Figures and tables
11.3 ERP results showing spatial frame processing 187
13.1 Layout of the school and grounds used to test children's
knowledge of a familiar environment by Ungar et at. (1996b) 228
13.2 Layout used by Rieser, Guth and Hill (1982) 230
13.3 Example of the layout used by Ungar et al. (1994) 239
Tables
4.1 Hypothetical cases of choices of places depending on
level of acquisition of a cognitive map and whether
choices are single or multiple 53
13.1 Strategies identified in the studies by Hill et al. (1993)
and Gaunet and Thinus-Blanc (1997) 231
Contributors
Edward H. Cornell is Professor of Psychology at the University of Alberta,
Canada. He studies wayfinding and lost person behaviour in natural envi
ronments.
Scott Freundschuh is currently Associate Professor at the University of
Minnesota in Duluth. He joined the faculty in 1994 and teaches courses
on cartography and geographic information systems, and is the Director
of the Geography Department's Geographic Information Systems and
Cartographic Analysis Laboratory. His research interests include a wide
range of topics concerning maps and spatial knowledge acquisition in
children and adults.
Tommy Glirling is Professor of Psychology at Goteborg University. His
current research focuses on attitudes, judgement, and decision-making
in different contexts including travel choice. He is the Director of the
Research Unit of Societal and Environmental Decision Analysis in his
department.
Florence Gaunet is Junior Research Fellow at LIMSI (CNRS, Orsay). Her
interests focus on the linkage between different sensory modalities and
spatial representation. For several years in Marseille, she studied the role
of vision in spatial memory, testing blind and sighted subjects. At the
University of California and the College de France, she investigated the
contribution of visual and gravitational cues to spatial memory. She is
now exploring the role of language and vision in navigation.
Reginald G. Golledge is Professor of Geography and Director of the
Research Unit on Spatial Cognition and Choice at the University of
California, Santa Barbara. His research interests include behavioural geog
raphy, spatial cognition, spatial knowledge acquisition, cognitive
mapping, human navigation with and without sight, behavioural travel
modelling, spatial decision-making and choice behaviour, gender and
spatial abilities, and geography and disability.
