Representing and solving spatial problems

There has been a long tradition of wayfinding and orienteering studies in humans but these have mostly neglected possible age-related differences in navigation. This field of inquiry is experiencing something of a resurgence of interest due to the development of VR technology which has brought the systematic study of large scale navigation into the laboratory and into the MRI scanning environment. Empirical studies to date identify navigation as an aspect of cognition that is vulnerable to the aging process. Functional and structural neuroimaging studies in humans suggest that age-related changes in the brain’s “navigation circuit” may underlie these behavioral age differences. Older adults also adopt unique spatial strategies and knowledge of these strategy preferences could enlighten both basic science research in spatial cognition and also inform the development of age-specific technological assistance that may extend functional independence of older adults into later life.

Similarities exist in how people process and represent spatial information and in the factors that contribute to disorientation, whether one is moving through airspace, on the ground, or surgically within the body. As such, design principles for presenting spatial information should bear similarities across these domains but also be somewhat specific to each. In this chapter, we review research in spatial cognition and its application to navigation system design for within-vehicle, aviation, and endoscopic navigation systems. Taken together, the research suggests three general principles for navigation system design consideration. First, multimedia displays should present spatial information visually and action and description information verbally. Second, display organizations should meet users' dynamic navigational goals. Third, navigation systems should be adaptable to users' spatial information preferences. Designers of adaptive navigation display technologies can maximize the effectiveness of those technologies by appealing to the basic spatial cognition processes employed by all users while conforming to user's domain-specific requirements.

Navigation is essential to life, and it is cognitively complex, drawing on abilities such as prospective and situated planning, spatial memory, location recognition, and real-time decision-making. In many cases, day-to-day navigation is embedded in a social context where cognition and behavior are shaped by others, but the great majority of existing research in spatial cognition has focused on individuals. The two studies we report here contribute to our understanding of social wayfinding, assessing the performance of paired and individual navigators on a real-world wayfinding task in which they were instructed to minimize time and distance traveled. In the first study, we recruited 30 pairs of friends (familiar dyads); in the second, we recruited 30 solo participants (individuals). We compare the two studies to the results of an earlier study of 30 pairs of strangers (unfamiliar dyads). We draw out differences in performance with respect to spatial, social, and cognitive considerations. Of the three conditions, solo participants were least successful in reaching the destination accurately on their initial attempt. Friends traveled more efficiently than either strangers or individuals. Working with a partner also appeared to lend confidence to wayfinders: dyads of either familiarity type were more persistent than individuals in the navigation task, even after encountering challenges or making incorrect attempts. Route selection was additionally impacted by route complexity and unfamiliarity with the study area. Navigators explicitly used ease of remembering as a planning criterion, and the resulting differences in route complexity likely influenced success during enacted navigation.

This chapter discusses cognitive issues about the use of maps and spatial orientation in the environment and possible implications of research in the literature of spatial cognition for map and navigation learning in STEAM. It first clarifies the tradition of research in spatial cognition, behavior, and thinking and discusses the concept of spatial representation in relation to symbolic and geometric understanding of maps and the acquisition of spatial knowledge in the environment. Then the chapter looks at the difficulties that students have with maps in terms of projection, scaling, and symbolization and discusses the possibility of instructional intervention, taking the degree of iconicity of spatial representations and the alignment of maps with the surrounding environments into account. Concerning spatial orientation, cognitive demands that configurational learning in large-scale environments poses and the distortions typically observed in people’s spatial knowledge and judgments are discussed, in particular the theoretical and practical implications of the existence of large individual differences. Finally, the chapter explains the manners in which people identify and communicate their locations in the environment and considers problems and prospects of spatial awareness in the age of advanced geospatial information and technology.

The classical psychophysical approach to human perception has been to study isolated aspects of perception using well-controlled and strongly simplified laboratory stimuli. This so-called cue reduction technique has successfully led to the identification of numerous perceptual mechanisms, and has in many cases guided the uncoverage of neural correlates (see chapters elsewhere in this volume). Its limitations, however, lie in the almost complete ignorance of the intimate relationship among action, perception, and the environment in which we live. Real world situations are so different from the stimuli used in classical psychophysics and the context in which they are presented that applying laboratory results to daily life situations often becomes impractical, if not impossible. At the Max-PlanckInstitute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, we pursue a behavioral approach to human action and perception that proves especially well-suited for studying more complex cognitive functions, such as object recognition and spatial cognition. The recent availability of high-fidelity “virtual reality” environments enables us to provide subjects a level of sensory realism and dynamic sensory feedback that approaches their experiences in the real world. At the same time, we can keep the ultimate control over all stimulus aspects that are required by the rules of psychophysics. In this chapter, we take a closer look at these developments in spatial cognition research and present results from several different experimental studies that we have conducted using this approach.

Although there is a large potential overlap between neuroscience and architecture, the studies bridging these fields are rare and newly emerging. Moreover, a gap is observed between the constructs, terminologies and research methods of architecture and neuroscience. In order to alleviate these problems, this study investigates main research themes and developments in spatial cognition research over the past two decades on the basis of the author keywords of published articles. Vosviewer© bibliometric analysis software was utilized to conduct keyword co-occurrence analysis, keyword clustering, and timeline analysis of keywords and current research on spatial cognition is discussed accordingly. The paper also reviews existing research at the intersection of neuroscience and architecture and comments on how this nexus could evolve in the future. It is concluded that embodied spatial cognition and affordances of architectural design provide a robust framework to guide further studies in this track.

Square Grid Cells Improve the Accuracy of Distance Estimations in Topographic MapsIn many everyday scenarios of orientation and navigation, it is inevitable to have a highly accurate distance knowledge. The acquisition of distance knowledge is a common example of map use. As cartographic communication usually depends on graphic symbols, the perception and learning of map information can be influenced by distortion mechanisms. To correct such distortions, foundational research in cartography and spatial cognition have made some design suggestions based on superordinate graphical structures. Some recent studies show that salient road networks and, especially, map grids can help to correct spatial distortion tendencies in memory. These graphic elements regionalize a map surface and serve as space-referencing units. Effects were reported in recall and recognition tasks. The present article includes an experimental study based on topographic maps. The results of the study provide evidence that square grid cells improve the performance in estimating longer distances.

In this article, we present the rationale, development and preliminary evaluation of a novel set of materials to encourage and improve the consideration of users and their needs during the process of architectural design. Our focus is specifically on two areas: user-centred design principles and spatial cognition research. To this end, we developed two decks of flash-cards, termed the Architectural Strategies Cards (72 cards) and the Spatial Cognition Cards (111 cards). We conducted preliminary evaluations of the cards in the design studio and in design thinking workshops with multidisciplinary groups of students and with architectural practitioners. Our results suggest that the cards improve designers’ immersion into the perspective of building-users in a playful way and introduce scientific concepts effectively. In conclusion, we argue that serious-games and card-based methods should be part of the multiple approaches necessary to encourage and improve user-centred thinking, and integrate research findings into evidence-based design at large.

The paper gives a brief overview of the interdisciplinary DFG priority program on spatial cognition and presents one specific theme which was the topic of a recent workshop in Göttingen in some more detail. A taxonomy of landmark, route, and survey knowledge for navigation tasks proposed at the workshop is presented. Different ways of acquiring route knowledge are discussed. The importance of employing different spatial reference systems for carrying out navigation tasks is emphasized. Basic mechanisms of spatial memory in human and animal navigation are presented. After outlining the fundamental representational issues, methodological issues in robot and human navigation are discussed. Three applications of spatial cognition research in navigation tasks are given to exemplify both technological relevance and human impact of basic research in cognition.

The structure and shape of an urban environment influence our ability to find our way about in the city^1-2^. Indeed, urban designers who face the challenge of planning environments that facilitate wayfinding^3^, have a consequent need to understand the relations between the urban environment and spatial cognition^4^. Previous studies have suggested that certain qualities of city elements, such as a distinct contrast with the background (e.g. The Eiffel Tower in Paris), or a clear morphology (e.g. the grid layout of Manhattan's streets) affect spatial behaviour and cognition^1,5-7^. However, only a few empirical studies have examined the relations between the urban environment and spatial cognition. Here we suggest that testing rats in experimental environments that simulate certain facets of urban environment can provide an insight into human spatial behaviour in urban environments with a similar layout. Specifically, we simulated two city layouts: (1) a grid street layout such as that of Manhattan; and (2) an irregular street layout such as that of Jerusalem. We found that the rats that were tested in the grid layout covered more ground and visited more locations, compared with the restricted movement demonstrated by the rats tested in the irregular layout. This finding in rats is in accordance with previous findings that urban grids conduce to high movement flow throughout the city, compared to low movement flow in irregular urban layouts^8-9^. Previous studies revealed that the spatial behaviour of rats and humans is controlled by the same underlying mechanisms^10-11^. In the same vein, we show that rats demonstrate spatial movement patterns that recall those of humans in similar urban environments. Rat behaviour may thus offer an in-vivo means for testing and analyzing the spatial cognitive principles of specific urban designs and for inferring how humans may perceive a particular urban environment and orient in it.

Spatial representations play a fundamental role in navigation, decision-making, and overall interaction with our environments. Understanding how individuals construct and use them holds significant importance in spatial cognition research, and even bears practical implications for urban planning as it can explain how we interact with the spaces we inhabit. In large urban areas, transit maps stand as prominent visual aids, guiding people through public transportation systems. These maps, while designed for navigational purposes, may influence how individuals perceive and represent their cities. For instance, Vertesi (Social Studies of Science 38:09-35, 2008) showed through a series of interviews including a "sketch mapping" phase, that London Tube Map seems to structure residents' spatial representation of their city. However, thorough quantitative research on this subject have not been carried out yet. Two experimental studies have been conducted to demonstrate how residents' representations of metropolitan areas closely resemble the schematic representations of their public transport networks. First, we show that residents of Greater Paris-public and private transport users alike-plot city landmarks in a layout more closely resembling that of the Parisian transit map than the geographical map. Next, we asked Greater Berlin, London and Paris residents to place landmarks of their cities on different map backgrounds. A similar procedure was followed for landmarks from an unknown city, after a dedicated learning phase. For known cities, the sketch maps produced were closer to transit maps than to the geographical ones, although less so if the test map background presented topographical elements (e.g., rivers, etc.). For learnt cities, participants' sketch maps were almost exclusively dependent on the map provided during the learning phase. These results suggest that familiarity with transit maps has a direct impact on the metric properties of spatial representation in memory, a phenomenon we propose to call the 'schema effect'.

Route directions are usually conveyed either by graphical means, i.e. by illustrating the route in a map or drawing a sketch-maps or, linguistically by giving spoken or written route instructions, or by combining both kinds of external representations. In most cases route directions are given in advance, i.e. prior to the actual traveling. But they may also be communicated quasi-simultaneously to the movement along the route, for example, in the case of in-car navigation systems. We dub this latter kind accompanying route directions. Accompanying route direction may be communicated in a dialogue, i.e. with hearer feedback, or, in a monologue, i.e. without hearer feedback. In this article we focus on accompanying route directions without hearer feedback. We start with theoretical considerations from spatial cognition research about the interaction between internal and external representations interconnecting linguistic aspects of verbal route directions with findings from cognitive psychology on route knowledge. In particular we are interested in whether speakers merge elementary route segments into higher order chunks in accompanying route directions. This process, which we identify as spatial chunking, is subsequently investigated in a case study. We have speakers produce accompanying route directions without hearer feedback on the basis of a route that is presented in a spatially veridical map. We vary presentation mode of the route: In the static mode the route in presented as a discrete line, in the dynamic mode, it is presented as a moving dot. Similarities across presentation modes suggest overall organization principles for route directions, which are both independent of the type of route direction-in advance versus accompanying-and of presentation mode-static versus dynamic. We conclude that spatial chunking is a robust and efficient conceptual process that is partly independent of preplanning.

The structure and shape of the urban environment influence our ability to find our way about in the city. Understanding how the physical properties of the environment affect spatial behavior and cognition is therefore a necessity. However, there are inherent difficulties in empirically studying complex and large-scale urban environments. These include the need to isolate the impact of specific urban features and to acquire data on the physical activity of individuals. In the present study, we attempted to overcome the above obstacles and examine the relation between urban environments and spatial cognition by testing the spatial behavior of rats. This idea originated from the resemblance in the operative brain functions and in the mechanisms and strategies employed by humans and other animals when acquiring spatial information and establishing an internal representation, as revealed in past studies. Accordingly, we tested rats in arenas that simulated a grid urban layout (e.g. Manhattan streets) and an irregular urban layout (e.g. Jerusalem streets). We found that in the grid layout, rat movement was more structured and extended over a greater area compared with their restricted movement in the irregular layout. These movement patterns recall those of humans in respective urban environments, illustrating that the structure and shape of the environment affect spatial behavior similarly in humans and rats. Overall, testing rats in environments that simulate facets of urban environments can provide new insights into human spatial cognition in urban environments.

Spatial cognition is a cognitive process of spatial environment. As an important tool of recording and presenting geographic information, map is the main medium for spatial cognition result. This paper evaluates the existing measurement approaches for map information, and the measurement of metric information proposed by Li and Huang is especially emphasized, for it considers the spatial distribution and relationships of map features. Because the map is a complex cognitive system, human cognition should be considered here. However these measures have neglected the cognitive concepts 'type' and 'level' of map features, which are valuable for human's spatial cognition. As a result, the authors employed the weighted Voronoi diagram to propose a new quantitative measure for metric information. An experimental evaluation is also conducted. Results show that metric information considering cognitive multi-type and multi-level is closer to the spatial environment and human's spatial cognition.

Continuation of periodic solutions in three dimensions