Cognitive Psychology Class Notes > Cognitive Maps

Definition

• representations and processes that allow us to perform tasks involving spatial relations
• our cognitive maps can vary in size: includes classrooms, apartment lay-outs, neighborhoods, cities, countries, etc.

LAB DEMO: Draw a map of Epcot.

Systematic Distortions in Cognitive Maps

Definition:

• tendency to judge our environment as more regular and orderly than it really is
• tendency to 'clean up' our mental image

Four Areas of Systematic Distortions in Cognitive Maps:

• Distance estimates
• Shape
• Orientation / Relative Positions

Distance Estimates as Systematic Distortions:

3 factors that influence distance estimates in cognitive maps:

1. Number of intervening cities (Thorndyke, 1981)

• Ss studied maps until they could say where all of the cities were
• varied distance between 4 base cities (100-400 mi)
• IV = # of intervening cities (0, 1, 2, or 3)
• DV = estimate distance between two given cities
• more intervening cities lead to larger distance estimates

Actual Distance	# Intervening Cities	Estimated Distance
300 mi	0	280 mi
300 mi	3	350 mi

2. Road-route distance (McNamara et al., 1984)

• Ss studied maps until they knew the locations
• shown city names and had to rapidly decide if that city was on the map (always a different city before a target city)
• priming -- a nearby city should prime your response

if Solona and Linville are stored as an equal distance from Calford, then they should produce equivalent decision times to Calford

• Results: Solona produced faster decision times than did Linville

	Actual Distance to Calford	Decision Time
Solona --> Calford	same	faster RT
Linville --> Calford	same	slower RT

3. Semantic categories (Hirtle & Mascolo, 1986)

• semantic clustering bias:
  • when two places seem semantically close, we believe they are geographically close
  • tendency to shift landmarks of the same cluster closer together geographically

Shape Estimates as Systematic Distortions

3 factors that influence shape estimates in cognitive maps:

1. Angle estimates (Moar & Bower, 1983)

• cognitive maps of Cambridge, England
• experimenters selected intersections where the streets come together at irregular angles
• task: estimate the angle at which streets come together
• results: Ss estimated closer to 90 degrees than what the intersections really were

2. Curves and the symmetry heuristic

3. Spatial arrangement

Orientation / Relative Position Estimates as Systematic Distortions:

2 factors that influence distance estimates in cognitive maps:

1. Rotation heuristic

• tendency remember things as more vertical or horizontal than they really are
• Which is farther east: San Diego or Reno? --> vertical
• Which is farther north: Seattle or Montreal? --> horizontal

2. Alignment heuristic

• tendency to remember things as more lined up than they really are
• tendency to line up the United States and Europe
• Which is farther north: Philadelphia or Rome?

Conclusions about Cogntive Maps

• we store more "regular" representations than what is in the real world
• this helps us reduce the amount of material stored in memory