The Importance of Mental Imagery in Map Reading

How do we relate what we see in a map to the world around us? A map provides a bird’s eye view of an extended area with the spatial relationships presented in terms of two-dimensional euclidean geometry. As we look out into the world, we are presented with a horizontal or straight-on view of a limited area -- the extended view is usually cut off by buildings or trees or other objects, and the spatial relationships are presented in terms of perspective geometry. I am currently investigating how people translate between the bird’s eye view with two dimensional euclidean geometry and the horizontal or straight-on view with perspective geometry.

[1]  L. Cooper,et al.  Mental transformations and visual comparison processes: effects of complexity and similarity. , 1976, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[2]  S. Pinker,et al.  Emergent two-dimensional patterns in images rotated in depth. , 1980, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[3]  L. Cooper.  Mental rotation of random two-dimensional shapes , 1975, Cognitive Psychology.

[4]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory , 1980 .

[5]  J. Fletcher.  Spatial Representation in Blind Children. 1: Development Compared to Sighted Children , 1980 .

[6]  D. Perkins.  Why the Human Perceiver Is a Bad Machine , 1983 .

[7]  G. Evans,et al.  Environmental Learning and Cognitive Mapping , 1981 .

[8]  W. Chase,et al.  Visual information processing. , 1974 .

[9]  E. Strelow.  What is needed for a theory of mobility: direct perception and cognitive maps--lessons from the blind. , 1985, Psychological review.

[10]  Cognitive Models for Spatial Representations in Congenitally Blind, Adventitiously Blind, and Sighted Subjects , 1976 .

[11]  E. Tolman.  Cognitive maps in rats and men. , 1948, Psychological review.

[12]  J. F. Herman,et al.  Cognitive Mapping in Blind People: Acquisition of Spatial Relationships in a Large-Scale Environment , 1983 .

[13]  S. Kosslyn.  Image and mind , 1982 .

[14]  Z. Pylyshyn,et al.  The rate of “mental rotation” of images: A test of a holistic analogue hypothesis , 1979, Memory & cognition.

[15]  Irwin N. Jankovic,et al.  Principles of spatial problem solving. , 1982 .

[16]  C. I. Howarth,et al.  The Mental Maps of the Blind: The Role of Previous Visual Experience , 1982 .

[17]  R. Shepard,et al.  Upward direction, mental rotation, and discrimination of left and right turns in maps , 1984, Cognition.

[18]  S Millar,et al.  Spatial representation by blind and sighted children. , 1976, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[19]  Annabel J. Cohen,et al.  Working Mental Representations of the Environment , 1984 .

[20]  R. Shepard,et al.  CHRONOMETRIC STUDIES OF THE ROTATION OF MENTAL IMAGES , 1973 .

[21]  Clark C. Presson,et al.  Building spatial representations through primary and secondary learning. , 1984, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[22]  M. Arbib,et al.  Multiple representations of space underlying behavior , 1982, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[23]  R. Shepard,et al.  Mental Rotation of Three-Dimensional Objects , 1971, Science.