psy 108: ch 7

  1. Cognitive map
    Mental imagery

    • Mental rep of the enviro that surrounds us
    • Mental image of the rel's among objs [buildings on campus]
    • Typically rep neighborhoods, cities, & countries--areas too large to see in single glanse so integrate info we've acquired from successive views
    • Real world settings & ecological validity
    • Spatial cognition
    • Both analog & propositional in nature
    • Judgments easier when mental map & physical map have matching orientations
    • Usu reflect reality w/reasonable accuracy
    • Mistakes usu "make sense" b/c systematic distortions of reality
    • Distance: often distorted by factors like # intervening cities, semantic categories, landmarks
    • Symmetric distortion: tend to construct maps in which shapes are more regular than in reality (90 degrees, symmetrical curves)
    • Heuristics
    • Integrate info from separate statements & combine them to form an integrated map
    • Make above-below decisions much faster than left-right
    • Reveal certain biases based on our LT interactions w/our bodies & physical properties of external world
    • Maps from verbal descriptions rep both orientation & point of view
    • Active nature of human cog processes--create a model to rep our knowledge
    • LTM: [remember layout of UCSB campus]
    • Working memory: help us switch btwn current task at hand [find my way to Freebirds] & use past mental images of walking thru IV
    • Experience based
  2. Spatial cognition
    Cognitive maps

    • Our thoughts abt spatial issues
    • Includes not only cog maps but also how we remember the world we navigate & how we keep track of objs in a spatial array
    • Interdisciplinary in scope
    • We're often unaware just how much info we know abt it
    • Indiv diff's in these skills quite large but ppl tend to be accurate in judging ability to find way to unfamiliar locations (metacog)
    • Diff's correlated w/performance on spatial tasks [mental rotation]
  3. Landmark effect
    Cognitive maps

    • General tendency to provide shorter estimates when traveling to a landmark vs. nonlandmark
    • Demonstrates importance of context when we make decisions abt distances & other features of our cog maps
    • Tend to establish important landmarks when we hear/read a story & uses those as reference points for adding other locations to our cog maps
    • Have a special, privileged status
  4. 90 degree-angle heuristic
    Cognitive maps

    • "Regularize" angles in cog maps so more like 90 degree angles
    • Rep angles in a mental map as being closer to 90 degrees than they really are (intersecting streets)
    • Easier to store schematic version than precisve version that accurately reps all the little details
    • Use heuristics when we rep relative positions in our mental maps--much harder to remember 60 degree angle
  5. Symmetry heuristic
    Cognitive maps

    • When there are curves/unusual deviation in roads we tend to think of them as symmetric [state borders, curve in a river/freeway]
    • We remember figures as being more symmetrical & regular than they truly are
    • General pattern: small inconsistencies of geographic reality are smoothed over creating cog maps that are idealized & standardized
  6. Rotation heuristic
    Cognitive maps

    • When we apply this general principle our previous knowledge can distort our memories of spatial rel's, making them more reg than they actually are
    • A figure that's slightly tilted will be remembered as being either more vertical/horizontal than it really is
    • [Think coastline as vertical]
    • Cross cultural evidence
    • Encourages us to construct cog maps that are more orderly & schematic than geographic reality
    • VS. alignment heuristic: requires rotating a single coastline, country, building, or other figure in a clockwise/counterclockwise fashion so its border is oriented in nearly vertical/horizontal direction
    • Makes sense but when our mental maps rely too strongly on it we miss important details that make each stimulus unique (top-down too active)
  7. Alignment heuristic
    Cognitive maps

    • When we apply this general principle our previous knowledge can distort our memories of spatial rels, making them more reg than they actually are
    • A series of geographic structures will be remembered as being more lined up than they really are
    • [Rome/Philadelphia ex: ppl line them up in same latitude & incorrectly conclude Rome is south]
    • VS. rotation heuristic: requires lining up several separate countries, buildings, or other figures in a straight row (vs. single)
    • Encourages us to construct cog maps that are more orderly & schematic than geographic reality
    • Makes sense but when our mental maps rely too strongly on it we miss important details that make each stimulus unique (top-down too active)
  8. Spatial framework model
    Cognitive maps

    • Emphasizes the above-below spatial dimension is esp important in our thinking; front-back dimension is moderately important & R-L dimension is least important
    • Vertical/above-below dimension: gravity (important & accessible), physically asymmetric to body (easy to tell apart)
    • Front-back dimension: usu interact w/objs in front of us more easily than behind us (asymmetry); easy to distinguish btwn front & back
    • R-L dimension: perceive objs equally on each side; symmetrical
    • Studies show ppl process above-below decisions significantly faster than L-R
Author
alliebabe
ID
32414
Card Set
psy 108: ch 7
Description
final
Updated