Cognitive map

Cognitive maps (also known as mental maps, mind maps, cognitive models, or mental models) are a type of mental processing composed of a series of psychological transformations by which an individual can acquire, code, store, recall, and decode information about the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in their everyday or metaphorical spatial environment.

The credit for the creation of this term is given to Edward Tolman.^[1] Cognitive maps have been studied in various fields, such as psychology, education, archaeology, planning, geography, cartography, architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, management and conspiracy theories^[2]. As a consequence, these mental models are often referred to, variously, as cognitive maps, mental maps, scripts, schemata, and frames of reference.

Putting it into simpler terms, cognitive maps are a method we use to construct and accumulate spatial knowledge, allowing the "mind's eye" to visualize images in order to reduce cognitive load, enhance recall and learning of information. This type of spatial thinking can also be used as a metaphor for non-spatial tasks, where people performing non-spatial tasks involving memory and imaging use spatial knowledge to aid in processing the task.^[3] The oldest known formal method of using spatial locations to remember data is the "method of loci". This method was originally used by students of rhetoric in ancient Rome when memorizing speeches. To use it one must first memorize the appearance of a physical location (for example, the sequence of rooms in a building). When a list of words, for example, needs to be memorized, the learner visualizes an object representing that word in one of the pre-memorized locations. To recall the list, the learner mentally "walks through" the memorized locations, noticing the objects placed there during the memorization phase.^[4]

The neural correlates of a cognitive map have been speculated to be the place cell system in the hippocampus^[5] and the recently discovered grid cells in the entorhinal cortex.^[6]

See also

• Cognition
• Fuzzy cognitive map

References

1. ^ Tolman E.C. (July 1948). "Cognitive maps in rats and men". Psychological Review 55 (4): 189–208. doi:10.1037/h0061626. PMID 18870876. 
2. ^ Knight, Peter (2002). Conspiracy Nation: the Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America. New York and London: New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-4735-3. 
3. ^ Kitchin RM (1994). "Cognitive Maps: What Are They and Why Study Them?". Journal of Environmental Psychology 14 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1016/S0272-4944(05)80194-X. 
4. ^ Downs, Roger; Stea, David (1973). Image and Environment: Cognitive Mapping and Spatial Behavior. Edward Arnold. ISBN 978-0202307664. OCLC 7690182. 
5. ^ O'Keefe J, Nadel L (1978). The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map. http://www.cognitivemap.net/. 
6. ^ Sargolini F, Fyhn M, Hafting T, McNaughton BL, Witter MP, Moser MB, Moser EI (May 2006). "Conjunctive representation of position, direction, and velocity in entorhinal cortex". Science 312 (5774): 758–62. Bibcode 2006Sci...312..758S. doi:10.1126/science.1125572. PMID 16675704.