Determining the shapes of landsurfaces from topographical maps

Abstract

In four experiments, practised adult subjects judged three-dimensional landsurface drawings against previously presented topographical contour maps. Variations were made separately in both the azimuth orientations and the elevations depicted in the surface drawings, and in the instructions to subjects on performing the tasks. Response times to prepare for the judgements were sensitive to orientation misalignment, those for the actual judgements were sensitive to depicted elevation, and shifting one's imagined viewpoint proved faster than equivalently rotating the imagined landsurface. These findings were interpreted in terms of array-like imagery representations of the mapped landsurfaces having been generated, preliminarily manipulated if necessary, and finally matched against the criterion surface drawings.