Spatial Cognition

This book, which provides a detailed interdisciplinary overview of spatial cognition from neurological to sociocultural levels, is an accessible resource for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, as well as researchers at all levels who seek to understand our perceptions of the world around us.

This book offers students an introduction to human spatial cognition and experience and is designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students who are interested in the study of maps in the head and the psychology of space. We live in space and space surrounds us. We interact with space all the time, consciously or unconsciously, and make decisions and actions based on our perceptions of that space. Have you ever wondered how some people navigate perfectly using maps in their heads while other people get lost even with a physical map? What do you mean when you say you have a poor "sense of direction"? How do we know where we are? How do we use and represent information about space? This book clarifies that our knowledge and feelings emerge as a consequence of our interactions with the surrounding space, and show that the knowledge and feelings direct, guide, or limit our spatial behavior and experience. Space matters, or more specifically space we perceive matters. Research into spatial cognition and experience, asking fundamental questions about how and why space and spatiality matters to humans, has thus attracted attention. It is no coincidence that the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for research into a positioning system in the brain or "inner GPS" and that spatial information and technology are recognized as an important social infrastructure in recent years. This is the first book aimed at graduate and advanced undergraduate students pursuing this fascinating area of research. The content introduces the reader to the field of spatial cognition and experience with a series of chapters covering theoretical, empirical, and practical issues, including cognitive maps, spatial orientation, spatial ability and thinking, geospatial information, navigation assistance, and environmental aesthetics.

First published in 1985. The present book represents a statement of the state of the art in a very important aspect of spatial cognition, its development.

The relationships between perception and imagery, imagery and spatial processes, memory and action: These are the main themes of this text The interest of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience on imagery and spatial cognition is remarkably increased in the last decades. Different areas of research contribute to the clarification of the multiple cognitive processes subserving spatial perception and exploration, and to the definition of the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning these cognitive functions. The aim of this book is to provide the reader (post-graduate students as well as experts) with a complete overview of this field of research. It illustrates the way how brain, behaviour and cognition interact in normal and pathological subjects in perceiving, representing and exploring space. (Series B).

Looking at the ways humans perceive, interpret, remember, and interact with events occurring in space, this book focuses on two aspects of spatial cognition: How does spatial cognition develop? What is the relation between spatial cognition and the brain? This book offers a unique opportunity to share the combined efforts of scientists from varied disciplines, including cognitive and developmental psychology, neuropsychology, behavioral neurology, and neurobiology in the process of interacting and exchanging ideas. Based on a conference held at the Neuroscience Conference Center of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, this book explores current scientific trends seeking a biological basis for understanding the relationships among brain, mind, and behavior.

10.2 Summary of Ideas ..................................................... 256 10.2.1 Spatial Behavior As Rules For Decision Making ................................... 258 10.2.2. Cognitive Mapping ......................................................................... 258 10.2.3. Storing Information ................................................. " ...................... 260 10.2.4. Searching ..................................................................................... 260 10.2.5. Learning ........................................................................................ 261 10.2.6. Judging Similarity .......................................................................... 261 10.2.7 Neural Geographic Information Science (NGIS) .................................... 262 REFERENCES ............................................... 265 INDEX ........................ .............. 279 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................... 287 x LIST OF TABLES Table 8.1: The types of similarity comparisons created for the experiment to determine the effect ofx as a first or second common or distinctive feature (Lloyd, Rostkowska-Covington, and Steinke 1996). Table 9.1: Data used to compute the gravity model using regression and a neural network. Data for all variables are scaled so that the highest value equals 0.9 and the lowest value equals 0.1. Table 9.2: Class means for 11 socio-economic and life-cycle variables for the Black, Integrated, and White classes. Table 9.3: Weights for neuron at row 5 and column 1 that learned the blue horizontal rectangle map symbol. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Spatial cognition is a research area of interest for both geography and psychology. Both disciplines are interested in fundamental ideas related to encoding processes, internal representations, and decoding processes. Figure 1.2: The place names on this map of New Orleans depict the propositions used for navigation by local residents. A similar map appeared in the June 30, 1991, edition of The Times-Picayune.

Applied Spatial Cognition illustrates the vital link between research and application in spatial cognition. With an impressive vista ranging from applied research to applications of cognitive technology, this volume presents the work of individuals from a wide range of disciplines and research areas, including psychologists, geographers, information scientists, computer scientists, cognitive scientists, engineers, and architects. Chapters throughout the book are a testimony to the importance of basic and applied research regarding human spatial cognition and behavior in the many facets of daily life. The contents are arranged into three sections, the first of which deals with a variety of spatial problems in real-world settings. The second section focuses on spatial cognition in specific populations. The final part is concerned principally with applications of spatial cognitive research and the development of cognitive technology. Relevant to a number of remarkably diverse groups, Applied Spatial Cognition will be of considerable interest to researchers and professionals in industrial/organizational psychology, human factors research, and cognitive science.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Spatial Cognition, Spatial Cognition 2008, held in Freiburg, Germany, in September 2008. The 27 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 54 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on spatial orientation, spatial navigation, spatial learning, maps and modalities, spatial communication, spatial language, similarity and abstraction, concepts and reference frames, as well as spatial modeling and spatial reasoning.