Artificial Cognitive Maps: Selecting Heterogeneous Sets of Geographic Objects and Relations to Drive Highly Contextual Task-Oriented Map Views

We present work from an on-going project to develop techniques of automated cartography. We introduce Artificial Cognitive Maps as an approach to integrating insights from spatial cognition with geographic data. The ultimate goal is to drive highly contextual map views that more effectively support navigation tasks such as travelling across large, complex cities. With a focus on our now ubiquitous small screen mobile devices, we propose that distortions on the traditional metric cartographic representation may support a reduction in cognitive load for the user, but that the logic and parameters of these distortions should be founded on the natural distortions present in our cognitive representations of geographic objects and their relation.