Preliminaries

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Preliminaries

• Please sit with your group
• Please pass your folders with Activity Sheets 1
  2 to the front of the class
• Reminder one person in your group needs to bring
  a camera to class next tuesday

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Environmental Cognition
Environmental cognition - How we acquire, store,
organize and recall information about locations,
distances and the arrangements in buildings,
streets and the outdoors.
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Environmental cognition includes . . .

• Spatial cognition the thinking processes that
• help us wayfind and understand the
  relative
• location in space of different places.

• Nonspatial cognition our mental models of
• nonspatial environmental aspects, e.g.,
  our
• memory of a place without reference to its
• relative location or distance.

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Spatial cognition includes the concept of
cognitive maps
Cognitive map - our mental representation of the
spatial arrangement of the physical
environment. They are the source of information
for wayfinding decisions.

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Exploring your own cognitive mapsSketch a map
of the CCSU campus
On the sheet I am distributing, sketch your
mental map of the CCSU campus.
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In groups, compare your maps (Informally,
complete the table below)
Years _at_ Residence
of Bldgs of Paths Student Sex CCSU
On/Off Campus Shown Shown
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A cognitive map is composed of 3 elements
Places the basic spatial units (e.g.,
buildings) to which we attach information such
as name, function, and affective quality
Spatial relations - distances and directions
between places and the inclusion of one place
inside another room ? dormitory ? campus
?town

• Travel plans - bridge between the mental world
  of
• cognitive maps and the navigation and other
  behaviors they
• support (not drawn on map)

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Kevin Lynch The Image of the City

• City Planner who was interested in how people
  imaged cities in their head.
• Asked residents of Boston, Jersey City, NJ, and
  Los Angeles to draw sketch maps of their cities.
• Asked them to include the routes they usually
  took to from work and the most vivid and
  distinctive features of their city

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Lynch found 5 categories of features commonly
used in the sketched maps

1. Paths
the routes along which people travel.
Examples streets, roads, walkways, public
transportation routes.
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Five common features in cognitive maps
1. Paths 2. Edges

linear elements that serve as dividing lines
between parts of the environment

Examples shorelines, walls, hedges, fences,
cliffs, railroad tracks
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Five common features in cognitive maps

• Path
• 2. Edges
• 3. Districts

.
areas on the map that people identify as having
some common character.

Examples Chinatown, Little Italy, fraternity
row, dormitory complex, red-light district, etc.
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Five common features in cognitive maps
1. Paths 2. Edges 3. Districts 4. Nodes

well-known points where behavior is focused,
often associated with the intersection of major
paths.

Examples transit terminals, popular plazas or
squares, places where people gather.
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Five common features in cognitive maps
1. Paths 2. Edges 3. Districts 4.
Nodes 5. Landmarks


physical objects that are easily viewed that
serve as key reference points, often visible
from far away.
Examples towers, tall building, statue,
uniquely designed or decorated storefront
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These 5 factors contribute to legibility the
ease with which a setting may be recognized and
organized by people
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This slide had a picture of the cognitive map I
drew of the campus
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In your group, examine your sketch maps for
examples of these 5 features.

Paths Edges Districts Nodes Landmarks
What elements were most often included?
Least often included?
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Errors on cognitive maps

• 1. Incompleteness people leave out
• key paths, districts, landmarks

• 2. Augmentation errors people add
• features that dont really exist, e.g.,
• put in connecting roads or paths that
• really arent there

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Errors on cognitive maps (continued)
3. Distortions of scale or direction people
put things too close together or too far apart,
or align them improperly

• 4. Euclidian bias people tend to recall
• ? non-parallel paths as parallel
• ? non-perpendicular paths as perpendicular
• ? curved paths as straight

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Surprise Geography Quiz

• Which city is farther north?
• 1. (a) New York (b) Boston
• 2. (a) Cleveland, OH (b) New Haven, CT
• 3. (a) Minneapolis, MN (b) Toronto,
  Canada
• Which is farther west?
• 4. (a) Atlanta, GA (b) Chicago, IL
• 5. (a) Reno, NV (b) San Diego, CA
• 6. (a) Ohio (b) Florida (which state
  extends further west?)

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Surprise Geography Quiz

• Which city is farther north?
• 1. (a) New York (b) Boston
• 2. (a) Cleveland, OH (b) New Haven, CT
• 3. (a) Minneapolis, MN (b) Toronto,
  Canada
• Which city is farther west?
• 4. (a) Atlanta, GA (b) Chicago, IL
• 5. (a) Reno, NV (b) San Diego, CA
• 6. (a) Ohio (b) Florida (which state
  extends further west?)

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Superordinate Scale Errors
In thinking about locations were not sure about,
we are likely to rely on larger categories of
which the place is a member
Toronto is in Canada Canada is north of the
United States Therefore, Toronto must be
north of Minneapolis
San Diego is in California Reno is in
Nevada California is west of Nevada
Therefore, San Diego must be west of Reno
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Individual differences in cognitive map errors

• Higher SES individuals tend to have better maps
• than people of lower SES. Why do you think
• this is true?

• Gender differences Discuss in your group
• Do you think men and women differ in
  their
• cognitive mapping ability?
• Do men and women differ in how they give
• directions?

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Gender differences
Men and women tend to mentally represent spacial
arrangements differently
women more spatial -- tend to emphasize
landmarks and districts (after you pass the
mall look for the big flagpole . . .)

• men more likely to give path structure,
  cardinal
• directions (North, South, etc), and
  distance
• estimates
• (turn east on Main street and go 3 miles .
  . .)

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Gender differences (contd)

• These differences appear to be more stylistic
• rather than differences in actual knowledge

For men, having a good sense of direction is
more important to self esteem than it is for
women

• Which probably provides the answer to
• this age old question . . .

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Question Why does it take just one
egg but a million sperm???
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Answer The sperm refuse to ask for
directions!!!
well, you take a left at the ovary and then . .
.
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Sequential vs. Spatial Cognitive Maps
I can find Joes house in Manchester if I leave
from my apt. in in New Britain, but I dont know
how to get there from Enfield!
Sequential maps emphasize pathsthe routes
one would encounter if traveling between
points.
C

B
D A


E
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Sequential vs. Spatial Cognitive Maps
Spatial maps give more of a birds eye view and
emphasize landmarks or districts. (survey
knowledge)
Picture of aerial view of city
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Research on how children develop their mental
maps suggest they go through 4 stages

• (1) Landmarks are seen and remembered

My house
Nursery school
The park
McDonalds
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How Children Develop their Mental Maps

• (2) Paths between landmarks are constructed

My house
Nursery school
The park
McDonalds
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How Children Develop their Mental Maps

• (3) Landmarks and paths organized into clusters

My house
Nursery school
The park
McDonalds
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How Children Develop their Mental Maps

• (4) Clusters and other features coordinated into
• overall framework

My house
Nursery school
The park
McDonalds
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Wayfinding

• The process by which people actually navigate in
  their environments (spatial problem solving)
• Wayfinding consists of 3 interrelated processes
• ? decision making - developing an action plan
• ? decision execution - executing the plan in
  real space

? information processing environmental
perception and cognition that provide the
information for the above decisions
(cognitive maps provide the template for
doing this)
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Small Group Discussion Identify characteristics
that facilitate wayfinding
HINT What makes it hard to find your way in a
maze?
Picture of corn maze At Lyman Orchards In
Middletown, CT
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3 characteristics that aid wayfinding

• 1) the degree of differentiation (do parts of
  the
• environment look the same or are
  distinctive?)

2) the degree of visual access (how much of the
environment can be seen from vantage points?)

• 3) the degree of complexity (how much and how
• difficult is the information to be
  processed?)

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You Are Here Maps

• Created to help people navigate in complex in
  geographical units such as shopping malls,
  college campuses, office parks, etc.
• Effective You Are Here Maps need to follow two
  design principles . . .

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Design Principles for You Are Here Maps

• 1. Structure matching - the observer needs
• two points on the map that can be matched
• with two parts of the setting that he/she can
• observe directly.

• 2. Orientation principle what is up on the
  map must must be in front of the observer

3. Read Levines article for more discussion
of these points
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Picture of You Are Here Map at WCSU