GRAPHIC ORGANIZATION AND MEMORY STRUCTURES FOR MAP LEARNING

Abstract

An investigation of map learning indicates that spatial data are retained in memory as regionalized groups of features (commonly referred to as chunks), which, in turn, provide the units for higher-order regions leading to an hierarchical memory structure. The particular nature of these structures is seen to result from an interaction between two organizational processes in cartographic communication — the operations of human memory and the graphic organization employed by the cartographer to depict the information presented. Graphic organization (the visual/spatial characteristics of map symbols) was found to have a strong impact on the definition of chunks, but not on the hierarchical nature of the memory structure itself — apparently a fundamental characteristic of memory encoding for spatial data. While learning performance was affected by the complexity of the memory structure employed, no apparent effect could be attributed to graphic organization as long as a single, strongly evident organization was present in the map.