Cognitive map

As a cognitive map (also mental map ) refers to the mental representation of a geographic space or spatial ( three-dimensional) imaginable logical and other contexts. In other words: Cognitive maps are mental simplified representations of complex multidimensional reality. The mapping of the geographical reality is just one of many examples. The concept is based on the assumption that people realize the information about spaces and landscapes in geographic maps -like images so that so can also draw cognitive maps basically. Everyone has this one other cognitive map of a space, for one, because he is in his home town and in its surroundings better versed in it than foreign areas; on the other, because each person perceives its environment due to its individual experience and mentally different.

While the term cognitive map was coined around 1800, was only by experiments of EC Tolman 1930 the final close [Note 1] that animals in their exploration in space not only stimulus-response pattern, but a spatial representation of the environment store, the logical conclusions can be made: a cognitive map.

One way to represent cognitive maps, the drawing from memory is out. Here, the subject is asked to draw a map of his hometown, another region or the planet, out of the head. It is shown very well in which areas he knows not ( such as vacation areas), and in which.

The term cognitive map is referred to by various authors as misleading as the idea would be wrong, that there was a " card-like " are representation of the environment in the brain

Kevin Lynch's research on cognitive maps is now a part of the perception of geography that deals with the subjective perception of spaces.

Characteristics of cognitive maps

Cognitive maps are characterized, among other things, by the fact that they simplify the real landscapes in several respects. These features occur particularly noticeable when people are asked to draw a landscape familiar to them as a map:

• Straightening: " Krumme " landscape features (rivers, roads) to be straightened in the spiritual idea.
• Right angles: We tend to imagine crossing points at right angles. For this reason it is easier for people to orient themselves in rectangular path networks than in oblique.
• Scientific classification: The landscape is given a clear north-south east-west orientation. Thus, many of the Upper Rhine Graben ago as north-south directed, even though he has a more northeast-southwest course in truth.

In addition, the world is usually distorted in a cognitive map: areas that are known to take in the cognitive map up more space and are more detailed mapped as foreign spaces. This characteristic is exemplified by Saul Steinberg cartoon View of the World from 9th Avenue.

Finally, cognitive maps are characterized by the fact that certain features and marking points " sticking out " oversize.