Stimulus Processing Models from Psychology: Can We Use Them in Cartography?

Serial/parallel and holistic models have been developed by psychologists to explain how subjects compare two stimuli, a function map readers also perform with symbols in maps. These models, along with the related concept of integral and separable categories of stimulus dimensions, have potential use in cartography. A review of these models suggests: the utility of redundancy to aid discrimination, the possible use of psychological space rather than physical space as a predictor of reader performance, and the kinds of dimensions that should be used for multivariate symbols.