Collaborative: Mapping Behavior as a Cultural Universal

这个正在进行的研究项目探讨了一个假设，即所有文化中的所有人都表现出映射行为。更具体地说，该理论表明，制作和使用类似地图的模型（定义为从空中观看的代表地理景观的物质人工制品或人工制品群，缩小比例，用抽象或标志性符号描绘）应该是所有当代和过去文化的特征。此外，在所有文化中，幼儿都应该表现出制作、阅读和使用简单地图模型的能力。四个实验将探索学龄前儿童的空间知识和制图能力。研究1考察了4岁儿童使用描绘环境物体的小模型构建类似地图的景观的能力，比较了个体和群体的行为，并确定建模行为是否先于使用自然语言表达这种行为的能力。研究2在墨西哥瓦哈卡州的一个农民村庄中重复了研究1的不同文化背景。研究3将确定4岁和5岁的德克萨斯儿童是否可以使用简单的图标地图来解决1公顷大小的宏观地理景观中的导航问题。研究4将通过测试芝加哥4- 5岁儿童在景观建模中解释和使用自定义地图符号的能力，来发现这些儿童是否能够理解地图的语义维度。第五，补充研究扩展了早期对地图行为的考古和民族志报告的探索。为了了解人们是如何在大的地理环境中理解、应对和四处走动的，有必要研究所有年龄和文化的人们制作和使用类似地图的模型的方式（从头顶上看到的景观）。对这一现象的研究是跨学科的，从地理学（文化生态学）延伸到环境心理学和人类学。直到最近，人们还普遍认为，儿童要到7岁左右才会获得这种能力，而且绘制地图的能力并非随处可见。在最近的研究中，本研究人员和其他人已经表明，在几个不同的文化中，3-5岁的儿童具有显著的地图制作和地图使用能力。学龄前儿童可以在没有指导的情况下阅读航空照片，并可以在游戏中构建类似地图的风景。这个项目提出要超越早期的研究，研究幼儿绘图的其他方面。它涉及研究幼儿制图中的社会和文化因素，制图与日常语言和抽象地图符号的使用的关系，以及幼儿在大环境中使用半图画地图找路。该研究将有助于理解幼儿环境认知和行为的发展。它应该对初级科学教育具有相当大的意义：如果学龄前儿童已经具备了基本的制图能力，那么幼儿园和小学早期教育可以扩大和丰富，以涵盖宏观尺度、地图尺度、物理、生物和社会科学的概念和理论（例如，土地和水的形态、生态系统、城市结构和位置系统），这些概念通常只教给大得多的儿童，因为人们错误地认为入学年龄的儿童不具备天生的制图能力。

This ongoing program of research probes the hypothesis that mapping behavior is displayed by essentially all people in all cultures. More specifically, the theory suggests that the making and use of map-like models (defined as material artifacts or groups of artifacts which represent geographical landscapes as viewed from overhead, reduced in scale, and depicted with abstract or iconic signs) should be characteristic of all contemporary and past cultures. In addition, an untaught ability to make, read, and use simple map-like models should be displayed by very young children in all cultures. Four experiments will explore preschool-age children's spatial knowledge and mapping ability. Study 1 examines 4-year-olds' ability to construct map-like landscapes using small models depicting environmental objects, comparing individual and group behavior and determining whether modeling behavior precedes ability to express such behavior using natural language. Study 2 replicates Study 1 in a contrasting cultural setting--a peasant village in Oaxaca, Mexico. Study 3 will determine whether Texan children aged 4 and 5 can use a simple iconic map to solve a navigation problem in a 1-hectare-size macro-geographic landscape. Study 4 will discover whether 4- and 5-year-olds in Chicago can understand the semantic dimension of mapping by testing these children's ability to interpret and use self-defined map-signs in landscape modeling. A fifth, supplementary study extends earlier exploration of archaeological and ethnographic reports of mapping behavior. In order to find out how people manage to understand, cope with, and get around in large, geographical environments, it is necessary to study the way people of all ages and cultures make and use map-like models (depicting the landscape as though seen from overhead). The study of this phenomenon is cross-disciplinary, extending from geography (cultural ecology) to environmental psychology and anthropology. Until recently it was widely believed that children do not acquire this ability until the age of about 7 and that the mapping ability is not found everywhere. In more recent research, the present investigators and others have shown, in several contrasting cultures, that 3-5-year-old children possess significant map-making and map-using abilities. Preschool-age children can read aerial photographs without instruction and can construct map-like landscapes in play. This project proposes to go well beyond earlier research to examine other dimensions of young children's mapping. It involves study of social and cultural factors in young children's mapping, of the relation of mapping to ordinary language and to the use of abstract map-signs, and of young children's utilization of semi-pictorial maps in wayfinding in large environments. The research will contribute to understanding the development of environmental cognition and behavior in young children. It should have considerable significance for primary education in the sciences: if preschool children already possess basic mapping abilities, then kindergarten and early elementary education can be broadened, and enriched, to encompass macro-scale, map-scale, concepts and theories in physical, biological, and social science (for instance, land and water forms, ecosystems, urban structure, and location systems), concepts that are usually taught only to much older children under the wrong assumption that children of school-entering age do not have natural mapping abilities.