Objective

Research in the cognition of geographic information focuses on human perception, memory, reasoning, and communication with regard to the spatial, temporal, and thematic characteristics of objects and events, both in the real world and in digital representations. Basic research in geographic cognition is relevant to a host of issues involving geographic information: data collection and storage, graphic representation, spatial analysis, interoperability of systems, decisionmaking, the societal use of geographic information systems (GISs), and more. We believe that many aspects of GIS usability, efficiency, and profitability can be improved by greater attention to cognitive research.

Background

A growing number of researchers are addressing cognitive questions about geographic information. Such work is part of a research tradition begun primarily in the 1960s by behavioral geographers, cartographers, urban planners, and environmental psychologists. Behavioral geographers started developing theories and models of human reasoning and decisionmaking leading to behavior in space, such as vacationing, migration, and daily travel. Cartographers initiated research on how maps are perceived and understood by map users, both expert and novice. To improve the design of places, planners began to study how humans perceive and learn about places. Environmental psychologists refocused traditional questions about psychological processes and structures to understand how these processes operate in man-made and natural environments, such as public buildings, neighborhoods, cities, and wilderness areas.

During the decades since the 1960s, several additional disciplines within the behavioral and cognitive sciences have contributed their own research questions and methodologies to this topic. Within research psychology, the subfields of perceptual, cognitive, developmental, educational, industrial/organizational, and social psychology have all conducted research on questions of how humans acquire and use spatial and nonspatial information about the world. Architects have joined planners in an attempt t o improve the design of built environments through an understanding of human cognition of those environments. Both anthropologists and linguists have conducted research on human conceptualization and language about space and place. Artificial intelligence researchers within computer science and other disciplines have developed simulations of spatial intelligence, in some cases as part of the design of effective robots.

More recently, within the past 5 to 10 years, an interest in geographic cognition has developed within the geographic information community, a community that now includes many of the disciplines described above. These researchers have begun to address a host of issues at the intersection between geographic information and cognition. How do humans learn geographic information, and how does this learning vary as a function of the medium through which it occurs (direct experience, maps, descriptions, virtual systems, etc.)? What are more natural and effective ways of designing interfaces for geographic information systems? How do people develop concepts and reason about geographical space, and how does this vary as a function of training and experience? Given the ways people understand geographic concepts, do some models for representing information in digital form support or hinder the effective use of that information? How do people use and understand language about space and about objects and events in space? How can complex geographical information be depicted to promote comprehension an d effective decisionmaking, whether through maps, models, graphs, or animations? How and why do individuals differ in their cognition of geographic information, perhaps because of their age, culture, gender, or specific backgrounds? Can geographic information technologies aid in the study of human cognition? How does exposure to new geographic information technologies alter human ways of perceiving and thinking about the world?

These topics and questions reveal that research on the cognition of geographic information has strong ties with other research priorities proposed by the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS). Several of the research priorities -- those addressing representations, scale, spatial analysis, and uncertainty -- deal in part with questions of the representation and depiction of complex spatiotemporal information. In all cases, crucial research needs to be conducted on how best to communicate this information accurately and effectively. The priority addressing interoperability includes concerns about sharing geographic information between distinct groups of users. The priority addressing GIS and society involves questions about social decisionmaking processes that depend in part on how information is understood by and communicated between participants in decisionmaking groups. These ties with other UCGIS priorities further suggest the importance of research in geographic cognition.

The UCGIS Approach

The UCGIS will support progress on these research issues in several ways. Most centrally, the UCGIS will facilitate the coordination of research and foster communication among the several disciplines that have relevant contributions to make. By promoting cognitive research and by printing and disseminating material such as this research agenda, the UCGIS will create a critical focus on issues of geographic information science for the disparate disciplines and research programs. This focus currently exists only among a small number of potentially relevant researchers; most such researchers are largely unaware of the importance of their work to issues of geographic information. In addition, the UCGIS approach will go far towards prioritizing the research issues. In identifying these priorities, and by dispersing findings from this research, the UCGIS will help ensure that cumulative progress is made.

Importance to National Research Needs

Research on geographic cognition is important to many areas of high priority within the national research and development agenda. An understanding of how humans conceptualize geographic features and information will support attempts to create geographic information standards (such as national and international data standards) and promote the interoperability of systems, including distributed information systems (such as digital geographic libraries). Research on geographic cognition will improve the functionality and dissemination of many information technologies, including data collection technologies, GISs, and global positioning systems. It will also play a major role in improving the effectiveness of geographic education.

Benefits

Inadequate attention to cognitive issues is a major impediment to fulfilling the potential of geographic information technologies to benefit society. Cognitive research will lead to improved systems that can profit from a fuller understanding of human perception and conception, particularly that of spatial and geographic "experts." It will undoubtedly aid in the design of improved user interfaces and query languages. It might well lead to improvements in representations, operations, or data models as well. In any case, a geographic information technology that is more responsive to human factors in its design will potentially greatly improve the effectiveness and efficiency of GISs. It will promote more equitable access to information and to technologies; relatively inexperienced or disadvantaged users will gain access to geographic information technologies, and experienced or expert users will gain greater power and efficiency in their use. Furthermore, cognitive research holds great promise for the advance of education in geographic information at all levels, including a general knowledge about geography, specific information about critical issues such as global and environmental change, and distillations of the concepts and approaches of geographic information experts. For example, cognitive research has led to advances in the design of InVehicle Navigation Systems (IVNS) as part of intelligent transportation systems. Research has shown that the effectiveness of IVNS placed in automobiles depends on the mode of communication and the format in which information is conveyed. For most users, verbal instructions lead to faster processing and fewer errors than map depictions. Further research will help determine which types of features are most useful to be included in computer generated instructions and how these features should be described. Maps are useful in some circumstances, however. Research has also shown that the orientation of maps is critical; software and hardware must support real-time realignment of digital maps during travel. Additional cognitive research will help determine the best way to design maps so that geographic information is more effectively communicated to the automobile traveler. Another example involves digital geographic library systems. Basic research on the human conception of geographic features is needed to design interfaces that optimally support queries that users send library systems. The user's level of training and experience in geographic information naturally plays a part in the success of the query, but cartographers, Earth scientists, and schoolchildren all have very different needs in this respect. Future research will help determine efficient methods of accommodating these differences in the de sign of digital libraries.

Priority Areas for Research

Six sets of research questions can be identified as high priority at this time. The geographic information sciences can make considerable progress on the following questions within a 3- to 5-year time frame:
 

• Are there limitations of current data models that result from their inconsistencies with human cognitive models of space, place, and environment? What benefits could be derived from reducing these inconsistencies? Are there alternative data models t hat would be more understandable to novices or experts? Research on categorization indicates that humans understand what is essentially a continuous physical world in terms of discrete objects and places. How can the nature of human categories be incorporated into GISs? How do limitations of human categorization impact our ability to reason with geographic information? Selfreport inventories and memory tests will help answer these questions, including sorting and category identification tasks.

• How can interfaces for wayfinding be designed and implemented in intelligent transportation systems to improve their effectiveness and efficiency for tasks such as route choice and the production of navigation information? Examination of errors and response times during the use of alternative systems will provide information on the strengths and weaknesses of particular designs.

• How can natural language be incorporated into GISs? How should it be? Possibilities to investigate are interpretation of natural language queries, automated input of natural language data, and automated output of natural language instructions. Linguistic studies can be focused on issues of geographic and spatial language.

• Spatial metaphors are frequently used to express nonspatial information ("spatialization"). How can such metaphors best be used to represent and manipulate information? Both the speed and correctness of interpretations of spatializations can be tested.

 
• How can GIS be used to represent and communicate important information in novel ways? Examples include information about error and uncertainty, scale and scale changes, and temporal information and process (as in animation). Performance measures can be collected for geographic tasks that require subjects to interpret the meanings of particular depictions of error, scale relationships, or temporal change.

 
• What are the possible applications of immersive virtual environment technologies to the exploration of information with GISs? What is the relationship of a virtual-environment format to traditional cartographic representations? Understanding the impact of such new media requires both systematic comparison with existing media and strategies for understanding novel experiential situations. Knowledge tests can be administered after exposure to virtual-environment representations and compared with results after exposure to traditional map representations.

Relevant Literature

Alm, H., 1993. Human factors considerations in vehicle navigation aids. In D. Medyckyj-Scott and H. Hearnshaw, editors, Human Factors in GIS. London: Belhaven Press, pp. 148-157.

Davies, C., and D. Medyckyj-Scott, 1994. GIS usability: Recommendations based on the user's view. International Journal of Geographical Information Systems 8:175-189.

Egenhofer, M. J., and D. M. Mark, 1995. Naive geography. In A.U. Frank and W. Kuhn, editors, Spatial Information Theory: A Theoretical Basis for GIS. Berlin: SpringerVerlag, pp. 115.

Frank, A. U., 1993. The use of geographical information systems: The user interface is the system. In D. Medyckyj-Scott and H. Hearnshaw, editors, Human Factors in GIS. London: Belhaven Press, pp. 314.

Mark, D. M., 1993. Toward a theoretical framework for geographic entity types. In A. U. Frank and I. Campari, editors, Spatial Information Theory: A Theoretical Basis for GIS. Berlin: SpringerVerlag, pp. 270-283.

Montello, D. R., and S. M. Freundschuh, 1995. Sources of spatial knowledge and their implications for GIS: An introduction. Geographical Systems 2:16-176.

Nyerges, T. L., D. M. Mark, R. Laurini, and M. J. Egenhofer, editors, 1995. Cognitive Aspects of Human-Computer Interaction for Geographic Information Systems. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Peuquet, D. J., 1988. Representations of geographic space: Toward a conceptual synthesis. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 78:375-394.