Beijing Residents' Cognitive Map Distortion and Sources Analysis Based on Sketch Mapping Method

Cognitive map, an internal representation of outside environment, is usually inconsistent with the real map. Cognitive map and its distortions are very significant for urban planning and construction. To date, sketch mapping is a dominant method to externalize cognitive map. In this study, we conduct a questionnaire investigation in Beijing by radom sampling of people to draw a sketch of Beijing city, then analyze major public imaginary of the city. By a bidimensional regression(BR) along with Standard Deviational Ellipse, we quantitatively measure the global and local map distortions, and derive distortion index(DI). Besides, we use Monte Carlo simulation to calculate the radius of the distortion based on DI. It shows that the average cognitive distortion of Beijing residents is 2 km to 3 km, the global distortion is elongated in the southwest-northeast direction and contracted in the east-west direction, and the northern local distortions are more obvious than the southern ones. Individual DI is negatively correlated with the extent of the familiarity of all landmarks;and remarkably correlated with other factors, such as gender, driving or not, the scope of activity, daily travel frequency, years of residence, and distance to anchor point.