Exploiting Illusory Grid Lines for Object-Location Memory Performance in Urban Topographic Maps

In order to be successful in spatial orientation tasks, people need to recall locations and configurations of spatial objects from their memory. This understanding of geographic space often arises from experience with cartographic media representing topographic and topological information by graphic symbols. Learning spatial information from graphic media is influenced by different perception-based grouping effects distorting the accuracy of spatial object-positions and their relations. Such geometric inaccuracies can be softened by adding a grid layer, which regionalizes the map and can be used as an additional orientation pattern. This grid layer usually consists of solid lines and overlays semantic information. The present paper reports the results of two empirical studies on object-location memory (OLM) performance. In these studies, the amount of visual detail of the grid layer was reduced. By positioning the grid layer below specific urban topographic objects (study 1), the grid pattern was graphically interrupted. These interrupted grid lines were completed by cognitive completion mechanisms (illusory grid lines) described in the Gestalt principles of closure and continuation. The second experiment examined the maximum grid line gap that is closed by cognitive line completion and keeps an advantage for OLM (study 2).