Transcribing from the Mind To the Map: Tracing the Evolution of a Concept

Abstract

Transcribing what is held in one's mind to a tangible map is experiencing a multidisciplinary renewal. Sketch mapping is being utilized to identify a range of community concerns, as well as for more generally revealing otherwise invisible landscapes. Whether the aim is to understand preference, perception, knowledge, or behavior, the result is some form of map. The genesis of this concept is usually attributed to seminal work in the 1960s and 1970s geography, planning, and environmental psychology. However, its resurgence in the past decade has been driven by a confluence of recent methodological and epistemological developments across numerous disciplines surrounding the role of local knowledge in ecological frameworks and how this can be mapped and analyzed with and without geospatial technologies. With growing adoption of sketch mapping well beyond its initial disciplinary niches, it is appropriate to review its evolution in order to inform ongoing and future research.

Key words:

• cognitive mapping
• mental mapping
• sketch mapping

Notes

1. For an overview of the turn toward local knowledge in the social sciences and public health, see Jennie Popay and colleagues(1998); Jason Corburn (2003, 2007); and Andrew Curtis and colleagues (2015, 2016).

2. The ecological framework is focused on the context of daily life. For some scholars, the spatial unit of interest has been the neighborhood, while for others it is activity spaces that may include the neighborhood, but other areas beyond home as well (see Coulton and others 2001; Diez Roux 2001; Kawachi and Berkman 2003; Coulton and Korbin 2007; and Mennis, Mason, and Cao 2013).

3. Reginald Golledge (2008) points to the work of Downs (1970) and Stea (1969) as the main theoretical contributions of this turn, yielding rationale for using sketch mapping as a data collection tool. For a review of perception studies in geography and of behavioral geography in general, see L.J. Wood (1970); Thomas Sarrinen and James Sell (1980); John Gold and Brian Goodey (1983); Spencer and Blades (1986); and Golledge (2008). For critique of this subdisciplinary focus, see Trudi Bunting and Leonard Guelke (1979).

4. Additional terms include mental mapping, cognitive mapping, mental sketch mapping, and freehand mapping, among others. For the purpose of consistency, sketch mapping will be the term used to encompass all of these terms throughout this article. To be clear, the focus is on the tangible map product rather than the voluminous literature on spatial cognitive processes or constructs.

5. A literature search was conducted between October 2015 and April 2016 to identify general trends as well as specific uses of terms for sketch mapping, such as cognitive map, mental map, and sketch map. Results were refined to peer‐reviewed, published articles in English. The abstracts and methods section of each record was read to assess relevance to the subject of this article.

6. See Appendix

7. For a more comprehensive discussion of how sketch maps have been used to understand fear of crime, see Bruce Doran and Melissa Burgess (2011).

8. Examples of qualitative studies where sketch maps are used for descriptive purposes or are used for visualization purposes include Vania Ceccato and Folke Snickars (2000); Marie Cieri (2003); and Samuel Dennis (2006). Integration of sketch maps with GIS has been employed in a number of more quantitatively focused research, which aims to spatially analyze the aggregated markings of all participants. Recent examples of this approach include Sorin Matei and colleagues (2001); Doran and Lees (2005); Curtis and colleagues (2014); and Eoin O'Neill and colleagues (2015).

9. It is worth noting that the Encyclopedia of Human Geography does not have an entry for “sketch map,” nor for “cognitive map,” though there is an entry for “Mental Maps” and within this definition Jacobson explains that this term is only one of several that falls under the broader terms of cognitive mapping (2006).

10. Examples of studies that address these issues include Downs and Stea (1973); Debra Murray and Christopher Spencer (1979); Christopher Spencer and Marie Weetman (1981); Gary Evans and colleagues (1984); M.H. Matthews (1984); Robert Lloyd and Theodore Steinke (1986); Reginald Golledge and Harry Timmermans (1990); Kitchin (1996); Saarinen (1998); Daniel Montello and colleagues (1999); Emanuele Coluccia and colleagues (2007); and Tina Iachini and colleagues (2009).

11. “The more homogeneous the group in terms of age and experience, the more overlap we might expect between the mental maps.” (Gould and White 1974, 52) This statement implies that there are shared impacts based on age, but what of experience? Is it experience with a particular place and its built environment, such as long‐ or short‐term neighborhood residency, or perhaps the experiences that shape us based on who we are and how others respond to us, such as sex, sexual orientation, skin color and other appearance‐based attributes, care‐giving responsibilities, educational attainment, employment, religious affiliation, or income? It is reasonable to consider that these and other “experience” sets color our environmental perceptions that would therefore shape what and how we represent our perceptions on a map.

12. See note 11.

13. Adina Lew (2011) addresses the landmarks/boundaries importance in cognitive map formation.

14. See Michael Goodchild (2007) and Sarah Elwood, Michael Goodchild, and Daniel Sui (2012) for discussions on citizens as sensors and VGI.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jacqueline W. Curtis

Dr. Curtis is an assistant professor of geography at Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44240; [[email protected]].