Cognitive maps

Cognitive maps are the representations that individuals use to understand, process, and navigate environments. The term cognitive map should not be taken as a literal metaphor as the internal representation will often violate principles of two-dimensional geometry, will rarely be either continuous or complete, and will often include non-spatial attributes, such as sights, sounds, or even aesthetic qualities, of a location. Research on cognitive mapping as made important contributions to both theory and application of geoinformatics by demonstrating how spatial information is acquired, structured, accessed, and schematized by the human information processing system. Theories of cognitive mapping have been expanded by through new frameworks, such as naïve geography, synergetic inter-representation networks, and geocognostics. Together, this body of research has provided a framework for the development of the next generation of user-centered geographic information systems. © 2009, IGI Global