Cognitive Maps and Spatial Behavior Process and Products认知地图与空间行为过程与产品.ppt

Cognitive Maps and Spatial Behavior: Process and Products ROGER M. DOWNS AND DAVID STEA Introduction A formal definition: Cognitive mapping is a process composed of a series of psychological transformations by which an individual acquires, codes, stores, recalls, and decodes information about the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in his everyday spatial environment. An Analysis of Cognitive Mapping Processes COGNITIVE MAPS AND ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR Human spatial behavior is dependent on the individuals cognitive map of the spatial environment. The environment is a large-scale surface, complex in both the categories of information present and in the number of instances of each category. Things are neither uniformly distributed over this surface, nor ubiquitous: they have a “whereness” quality. An Analysis of Cognitive Mapping Processes In contrast, the individual is a relatively small organism with limited mobility, stimulus-sensing capabilities, information processing ability, storage capacity, and available time. The individual receives information from a complex, uncertain, changing, and unpredictable source via a series of imperfect sensory modalities operating over varying time spans and intervals between time spans. An Analysis of Cognitive Mapping Processes From such diversity the individual must aggregate information to form a comprehensive representation of the environment. This process of acquisition, amalgamation, and storage is cognitive mapping, and the product of this process at any point in time can be considered as a cognitive map. An Analysis of Cognitive Mapping Processes Given a cognitive map, the individual can formulate the basis for a strategy of environmental behavior. We view cognitive mapping as a basic component in human adaptation, and the cognitive map as a requisite both for human survival and for everyday environmental behavior. It is a coping mechanism through which the individual answers two basic questions quick