Effect of city form and sociospatial divisions on cognitive representation of an urban environment

ABSTRACT

This study’s goal was to clarify how a city’s form and its internal sociospatial divisions affect cognitive representation of an urban environment. The study was based on an experiment in directional judgment in the city of Tel Aviv; it simultaneously provided conditions for cognitive distortions rooted in the orientation of a city’s form relative to the north–south (N-S) axis together with the socioeconomic and morphological differentiation between its northern and southern areas. Estimated directions within and between the city’s areas revealed systematic distortions related to (a) perceptual representation of the city’s form (i.e., rotation of the city‘s form) and (b) categorical representation stemming from the sociospatial division between the city’s internal areas. These findings provide evidence for the involvement of city form and sociospatial divisions in its cognitive representation. They also support arguments regarding the nonunitary nature of cognitive maps. The implications of the findings for urban planning are discussed.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the help of N. Kaplan and A. Krup in the analysis and mapping of the study data.

Notes

1. The current socioeconomic index is published by the ICBS (2013). This weighted average index is constructed by 15 variables such as income, education, and employment; it is considered the primary index defining sociospatial divisions between regions, cities, and localities in Israel. The ICBS assigns a value ranging between 1 (the lowest level) and 20 (the highest level) to each statistical area.

2. The sites include major transportation sites, cultural institutions, gardens and parks, famous landmarks (Maariv Bridge and Shalom Tower), and historic sites used as places of entertainment (Tel Aviv Port and Hatachana compounds). Selection of the sites was facilitated by findings from a previous study conducted on Tel Aviv residents’ images of the city (Omer, Goldblatt, Talmor, & Roz, 2005).

3. Prior to statistical analysis, the direction estimations were examined to identify exceptional responses (i.e., outliers) that may indicate a lack of geographical knowledge rather than a systematic error resulting from perception-based or categorical cognitive representation. The criterion defining outlier error was a difference in estimation of at least 90° from the true direction; that is, a deviation of a full quadrant from the true direction. These outliers were subsequently excluded from the analysis.

4. This was also true when the effect size (Cohen’s d; mean distortion/SD) is considered (Table 1): The average distortion in the pairs belonging to group C (d = −0.82) is significantly larger than the average distortions in the pairs belonging to groups A and B (d = −0.38 and d = −0.21, respectively).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Itzhak Omer

Itzhak Omer is a Professor of Urban and Social Geography in the Department of Geography and the Human Environment and Head of the Urban Space Analysis Laboratory at Tel Aviv University. His areas of academic interest include urban modeling, agent-based models, spatial behavior and spatial cognition, urban morphology, urban systems, and social geography of the city. His research examines processes connecting urban built environments to spatial cognition, movement, and the formation of urban areas.