This book offers students an introduction to human spatial cognition and experience and is designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students who are interested in the study of maps in the head and the psychology of space. We live in space and space surrounds us. We interact with space all the time, consciously or unconsciously, and make decisions and actions based on our perceptions of that space. Have you ever wondered how some people navigate perfectly using maps in their heads while other people get lost even with a physical map? What do you mean when you say you have a poor "sense of direction"? How do we know where we are? How do we use and represent information about space? This book clarifies that our knowledge and feelings emerge as a consequence of our interactions with the surrounding space, and show that the knowledge and feelings direct, guide, or limit our spatial behavior and experience. Space matters, or more specifically space we perceive matters. Research into spatial cognition and experience, asking fundamental questions about how and why space and spatiality matters to humans, has thus attracted attention. It is no coincidence that the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for research into a positioning system in the brain or "inner GPS" and that spatial information and technology are recognized as an important social infrastructure in recent years. This is the first book aimed at graduate and advanced undergraduate students pursuing this fascinating area of research. The content introduces the reader to the field of spatial cognition and experience with a series of chapters covering theoretical, empirical, and practical issues, including cognitive maps, spatial orientation, spatial ability and thinking, geospatial information, navigation assistance, and environmental aesthetics.

Foreword -- Space as object of knowledge and object of practice -- Philosophical approaches to space -- Geographic space -- Space-related practices -- Spatial behavior and spatial representations -- Classifications -- Frames of reference and cognitive maps -- Measurements -- Brain and sensorimotor systems: functions and dysfunctions -- The spatial brain -- Weaknesses -- Spatial challenges -- Space and language -- Spatial terminology -- Spatial descriptions -- Routes and route directions -- Computation and technologies -- Space and computer sciences -- Assistance -- Virtual spaces -- Epilogue. Spatial thinking -- References -- Index of names -- Index of terms

How does knowledge of the body in space relate to an understanding of space itself? Spatial cognition is discussed from two closely related perspectives: the internal mapping of external stimuli (e.g., landmarks and sensory perception of environmental information) and the internal mapping of internally perceived stimuli (e.g., kinesthetic and visual imagery), and their subsequent effects on behaviour. Clarification of what spatial information is present in most perceptual processes and how this is used cognitively in relation to the self in space is then established. Major points and controversies of the various models are discussed, along with evolutionary perspectives of spatial perception and object recognition and comparisons between human and non-human spatial cognitive abilities and behaviours. Written for postgraduate students and researchers, the authors present theoretical and experimental accounts at multiple levels of analysis - perceptual, behavioural and cognitive - providing a thorough review of the mechanisms of spatial cognition.

This book, which provides a detailed interdisciplinary overview of spatial cognition from neurological to sociocultural levels, is an accessible resource for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, as well as researchers at all levels who seek to understand our perceptions of the world around us.

All living creatures inscribe their activity in space. Human beings acquire knowledge of this space by traversing it, listening to verbal descriptions, and looking at maps, atlases, and digital media. We memorize routes, compare distances mentally, and retrieve our starting place after a long journey. Space and Spatial Cognition provides an up-to-date introduction to the elements of human navigation and the mental representation of our environment. This book explores the mental capacities which enable us to create shortcuts, imagine new pathways, and thus demonstrate our adaptation to the environment. Using a multidisciplinary approach which draws on psychology, neuroscience, geography, architecture and the visual arts, the author presents answers to a number of questions. Which mental capacities do people mobilize when confronted with space? Which brain functions do they implement? How do digital technologies extend these capacities? By presenting space at the crossroads of a number of disciplines, this volume reveals how each of them enhances our understanding of human behaviour in space. Space and Spatial Cognition provides a unique insight into all facets of spatial cognition, including spatial behaviour, language, and future technologies. It will be the ideal companion for all students and researchers in the field.

Argues for an interactionist approach to spatial development that incorporates and integrates essential insights of the Piaget, Nativist, and Vygotskyan approaches.

This book contains twenty-eight papers by participants in the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on "Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space," held in Las Navas del Maxques, Spain, July 8-20, 1990. The NATO ASI marked a stage in a two-year research project at the U. S. National Center for Geographic Infonnation and Analysis (NCOIA). In 1987, the U. S. National Science Foundation issued a solicitation for proposals to establish the NCGIA-and one element of that solicitation was a call for research on a "fundamental theory of spatial relations". We felt that such a fundamental theory could be searched for in mathematics (geometry, topology) or in cognitive science, but that a simultaneous search in these two seemingly disparate research areas might produce novel results. Thus, as part of the NCGIA proposal from a consortium consisting of the University of California at Santa Barbara, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and the University of Maine, we proposed that the second major Research Initiative (two year, multidisciplinary research project) of the NCOIA would address these issues, and would be called "Languages of Spatial Relations" The grant to establish the NCOIA was awarded to our consortium late in 1988.