Chapter 7: Cognitive Maps & Heuristics

alignment heuristic

a series of geographic figures will be remembered as being more lined up than they really are

According to the spatial framework model explain above, below, front, back and left and right relationship

above-below dimension is important to our thinking, front-back dimension is moderate, right-left dimension is least important

Describe the angular and straight judgment of distance

angles seem farther while straight lines seem shorter

Our initital idea of cognitive maps came from whom?

behaviorists

in terms of cognitive maps, familiarity and unfamiliarity does what?

familiarity compresses and unfamiliarity expands

What are 5 characteristics of judgment of distances?

familiarity, intervening cities, curve or angles, landmarks and semantic categories

symmetry heuristic

figures are more symmetrical and regular than they really are

rotation heuristic

figures that are slightly tilted are remembered as being either more vertical or more horizontal than they really were

forward-up heuristic

forward in space is up on a map

What did Tolman a behaviorist challenge that was so influential to cognitive maps?

he challenged the idea that only things learned are what are observable, learning = observation

Describe the intervening cities and non judgment of distance

if cities are randomly distributed throughout the region, 2 cities are usually closer together when they are no intervening cities between them

Describe the landmark and far from landmark judgment of distance

includes landmark effect which is the general tendency to provide shorter estimates when traveling to a landmark rather than a non-landmark

what is the correlation between distance and time of reaction?

increase in distance = longer time for reaction

in terms of cognitive maps, intervening cities and non-intervening do what?

intervening cities expand, non-intervening compress

in terms of cognitive maps, landmark and away from landmarks do what?

landmarks compress, and far from landmarks expand

what did Tolman come up with?

latent learning where an animal demonstrates behavior of learning long after the fact

what do cognitive maps rely on?

mental images showing relationships between objects

cognitive maps

mental representation of external environments

in terms of cognitive maps,more angular or curve and straight line do what?

more angular or curve expands, straight lines compress

heuristic

problem solving strategy to try to focus on big picture, remove complexity and remove a lot of detail

spatial cognition

refers to out thoughts about spatial issues and help us to remember how we navigate and how we keep track of objects in a spatial array

90 degree angle heuristic

represent angles in a mental map as being closer to 90 degrees than they really are

What id the difference between alignment and rotation heuristic?

rotation requires rotating a single coastline while alignment requires lining up several separate countries

in terms of cognitive maps, semantic categories and non-categories do what?

semantic categories compress, non-categories expand

What are the 4 types of cognitive heuristics?

symmetry, rotation, alignment and forward-up

When Tolman experimented with the mice in the mazes what did he conclude?

that pre-exposure to the maze when never being reinforced still allowed the mouse to learn the route faster.

When tolman blocked the route of the food for the mouse on the main route what happened?

the rat still knew the correct direction to go, he did learning without behavior without learning a new way.

what do cognitive maps focus on?

the way we represent geographic space

T or F: cognitive maps are things you cannot see and are far from behavior

true

T or F: metacognitions are usually reasonably correct about spatial ability

true

t or f: people tend to shift each location closer to other sites that belonged to the same semantic cluster

true

t or f: prominent destinations apparently seem closer than less important destinations

true

t or f: spatial cognition is an interdisciplinary in cognition

true

IN tversky's experiment was vertical dimensions figured out more quikcly or horiztonal? why?

vertical because it is correlated to gravity and its asymmetric to a humans upright body

Describe the familiarity and non judgment of distance

we are more detail-oriented when giving directions to someone

psychophysics

we are not bound by physical restraints but we tend to imagine real space so this is a set of methods that allow for the precise determination of how a persons internal experience relates to external stimuli

what happens when we rely too strongly on heuristics when using mental maps?

we miss the important details that make each stimulus unique

What did Tversky point out about the way we use heuristics?

we use them when we represent relative positions in our mental maps just as when we represent angles intersecting streets as being close to 90 degree angles or when we represent curves as being symmetrical than they really are

Describe the semantic and non-categorical judgment of distance

when 2 places belong to the same category we believe that they are also geographically close.

what happens when we rely too strongly on heuristics when using mental maps? in regards to topdown and bottom up

when our top-down processing is too active we fail to pay attention to our bottom-up processing

in regards to cognitive maps when are judgments easier?

when your mental map and the physical map have matching orientations

People rapidly answered which objects were above or below but required more time on what?

which objects were ahead or behind, right or left