Cognitive landscape and information: New perspectives to investigate the ecological complexity

Landscape ecology deals with ecological processes in their spatial context. It shares with ecosystem ecology the primate of emergent ecological disciplines. The aim of this contribution is to approach the definition of landscapes using cognitive paradigms. Neutral-based landscape (NbL), individual-based landscape (IbL) and observed-based landscape (ObL) are defined to explore the cognitive mechanisms. NbL represents the undecoded component of the cognitive matrix. The IbL is the portion of landscape perceived by the biological sensors. ObL is the part of the cognitive matrix perceived using the cultural background of the observer. The perceived landscape (PL) is composed by the sum of these three approaches of landscape perception. Two further types of information (sensu Stonier) are recognized in this process of perception: the compressed information, as it is present inside the cognitive matrix, and the decompressed information that will structure the PL when a semiotic relationship operates between the organisms and the cognitive matrix. Scaling properties of these three PL components are recognized in space and time. In NbL scale seems irrelevant, in IbL the perception is filtered by organismic scaling and in ObL the spatio-temporal scale seems of major importance. Definitively, perception is scale-dependent. A combination of the cognitive approach with information paradigms to study landscapes opens new perspectives in the interpretation of ecological complexity. © 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.SCOPUS: cp.j