The Estimation of Distance and Direction from Cognitive Maps

Theories to explain errors in cognitive maps typically have been related to characteristics of environments and cognitive mappers. Other sources of error are the processes used to learn and recall spatial information. This study investigated the effect of encoding and decoding processes on errors in cognitive maps when spatial knowledge was acquired only from a cartographic map. Subjects estimated distances and directions for routes on a map of a hypothetical environment that was part urban and part rural, while looking at the map and from memory. Memory groups acquired the spatial information by writing verbal directions for traversing routes and by sketching routes. Subjects who looked at the map to make their estimates were faster and more accurate than memory subjects. The memory subjects overestimated shorter distances and underestimated longer distances. Perception subjects consistently overestimated distances. Perception subjects and memory subjects appeared to be using different cognitive processes to make some estimates. Subjects generally took longer and were less accurate when making estimations for urban routes compared to rural routes. This would appear to be caused by the turns, cross streets and additional verbal information associated with the urban part of the map.