Geography 592:
Cognitive Geography and Geographical Cognition
Instructor:
David M. Mark
Email:
dmark@geog.buffalo.edu
This course will provide an overview of topics in spatial cognition and perception. Topics will include map perception, wayfinding and navigation, behavioral geography, and environmental 'perception'. We will also examine how human natural languages represent and express spatial concepts. Implications for applications such as vehicle navigation systems, and both database contents and user interfaces for geographic information systems will also be examined.
FACTS ABOUT THE COURSES
SPRING 2000 INFORMATION:
GEO 592
TIMETABLE: Geography 592 meets twice a week (Tu & Th), from 11:00 am to 12:20 pm.
CREDIT HOURS: 3
GRADING: Two non-cumulative short-essay tests will each be worth 35 % of the grade, and a term paper will be worth 30 %.
DRAFT Course Outline
- January 16 (Tu) 1. Introduction
- Discussion of course objectives and requirements.
- January 18 (Th) 2. What is "Cognitive Science"?
- A brief introduction to this field which combines the more computational and formal aspects of cognitive psychology and related behavioral sciences with the theoretical or explanatory side of artificial intelligence.
- January 23 (Tu) 3. The Role of Formal Models and Human Subjects
- Why develop formal, mathematical models? Software Engineering, GIS, etc.
- Why use human subjects? How?
- January 25 (Th) 4. Experiential Realism and Metaphor
- Experiential and Formal Models of Geographic Space, by David M. Mark and Andrew U. Frank
- Lakoff, Johnson
- January 30 (Tu) 5. Cognition and Language
- Why language seems to matter. Talmy's "How Language Structures Space"; The Whorf Hypothesis. Alternative sources of information about thinking.
- February 1 (Th) 6. 'Mental Maps'
- Previous research in geography. Gould and White's book. Kuipers' work. Do 'mental maps' or 'cognitive maps' have to be 'map- like'? Tversky's 'cognitive collage.
- February 6 (Tu) 7. Behavioral Geography and Environmental 'Perception'
- How economic and social/cultural geographers have included mental models of geographic space in the research. Golledge; others. Choice models. Hierarchical models of space.
- Environmental 'perception' is a 'mis-named' sub-field of geography. Particularly has been concerned with hazards, how people think about natural hazards and react to them.
- February 8 (Th) (DMM away)
- February 13 (Tu) (DMM away)
- February 15 (Th) 8. Navigation and Wayfinding
- February 20 (Tu) 9. Typologies of Spatial Knowledge
- Freundschuh's typology. Related ideas
- February 22 (Th) 10. Scale: Kinds of Spaces
- 'Zubin spaces'; Montello's model
- February 27 (Tu) TEST #1
- March 1 (Th) 11. Research Methods: Human subjects Models
- March 6 & 8 Spring break, no classes
- March 13 (Tu) 12. Designing Human SUbjects Experiments
- March 15 (Th) 13. How Language Structures Space (Talmy's work)
- March 20 (Tu) 14. Cross-linguistic Differences in Spatial Relation terms (Bowerman)
- March 22 (Th) 15. Spatial Relations: Introduction
- The 9-Intersection and related models
- March 27 (Tu) 16. Spatial Relations: Topological Relations
- March 29 (Th) 17. Spatial Relations: Distance and Direction
- quantitative (Peuquet) and qualitative (Frank)
- April 3 (Tu) 18. Spatial Categories: Entity Types and Feature Codes
- Smith, B., and Mark, D. M., 1998. Ontology and Geographic KindsProceedings, Eighth International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling, Vancouver, British Columbia.
- Mark, D. M., Smith, B., and Tversky, B., 1999. Ontology and Geographic Objects: An Empirical Study of Cognitive Categorization In Freksa, C., and Mark, D. M., editors, Spatial Information Theory: A Theoretical Basis for GIS, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Sciences, pp. 283-298.
- April 5 (Th) 19. Spatial Categories, continued
- April 10 (Tu) 20. Spatial Categories, continued
- April 12 (Th) 21. Cultural Differences in Spatial Cognition
- April 17 (Tu) 22. Human-Computer Interaction for GIS
- April 19 (Th) 23. HCI (continued)
- April 24 (Tu) 24. Current Research Issues
- April 26 (Th) TEST #2 (non-cumulative)
- April 30 (M) Last Day of Classes
- May 7 (M) Term Paper or research Project Due
Incomplete Bibliography of geographic Cognition Research, up to 1994
Last updated on January 14, 2001
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