Wayshowing
Publications
Wayfinding Behavior: Cognitive Mapping and Other Spatial Processes,
Edited by Reginald G. Golledge,
John Hopkins University Press, 1998
Wayshowing: Cognitive Mapping and Other Special Processes
This text presents many of the concepts and background research used by America’s Byways Resource Center in developing their initiative to assist the byway community. The metaphor of a “cognitive map” has attracted wide interest since it was first proposed in the late 1940s. Researchers from fields as diverse as psychology, geography, and urban planning have explored how humans process and use spatial information, often with the view of explaining why people make wayfinding errors or what makes one person a better navigator than another. Cognitive psychologists have broken navigation down into its component steps and shown it to be an interplay of neurocognitive functions, such as “spatial updating” and “reference frames” or “perception-action couplings.” But there has also been an intense debate among biologists over whether animals have cognitive maps or have other forms of internal spatial representations that allow them to behave as if they did. Yet until now, little has been done to relate research on human and non-human subjects in this area. In this text, Reginald Golledge brings together a distinguished group of scholars to offer a unique and comprehensive survey of current research in these diverse fields.
