Cognitive maps, cognitive collages, and spatial mental models

Abstract

Although cognitive map is a popular metaphor for people's mental representations of environments, as it is typically conceived, it is often too restrictive. Two other metaphors for mental representations are proposed and supported. Cognitive collages are consistent with research demonstrating systematic errors in memory and judgment of environmental knowledge. Yet, for some simple or well-known environments, people seem to have coherent representations of the coarse spatial relations among elements. These spatial mental models allow inference and perspective-taking but may not allow accurate metric judgments.