Spatial Properties of Configurational Knowledge

许多地理学家、心理学家和其他认知科学家对人们获取空间模式和关系知识的方式进行了研究。研究人员对人们获得更复杂的空间原理（如距离、连通性、区域结构和空间分层）的知识的过程持不同意见。一些人认为，这种知识是通过单一经验获得的见解的集合而获得的。另一些人则认为，通过直接接触像地图这样的媒体，可以更快、更全面地获得这些知识，因为地图直接以构型格式呈现空间信息。本项目将通过一组对比实验来检验这两种观点的有效性。受试者将被分为两组。其中一组的人将会看到一系列的幻灯片，这些幻灯片代表了这些人可能会经过的路线的地面视图。另一组的人会看到相同路线的地图。这两个小组的成员将被要求执行一系列任务，测试他们识别空间模式和分布、重建路线、识别地点的邻近性以及识别区域和等级关系的能力。答案的准确性和速度将被测量和测试，以确定那些通过观看幻灯片复制的“自下而上”方法获取信息的人是否与那些通过观看地图的“鸟瞰”视角获取信息的人保留了同样多的配置知识。该项目将直接检验关于不同获取空间信息方式有效性的假设。这些实验的结果将大大提高我们对人们如何形成空间理解的认识，为什么他们在不同的空间环境中会有不同的行为，以及如何改变地理教育以变得更有效。

Many geographers, psychologists, and other cognitive scientists have conducted research on the ways that people acquire knowledge about spatial patterns and relationships. Researchers disagree about the process by which people gain knowledge of more complex spatial principles like distance, connectivity, regional structure, and spatial stratification. Some contend that this type of knowledge is acquired through aggregation of insights gained through single experiences. Others argue that such knowledge is more quickly and completely obtained through direct exposure to media like maps that directly present spatial information in configurational formats. This project will test the validity of these two contentions through a set of comparative experiments. Subjects will be separated into two groups. People in one group will be shown series of slides that represent ground-level views along routes that those individuals might travel. People in the other group will be shown maps covering the same routes. Members of both groups will be asked to conduct a series of tasks that test their abilities to recognize spatial patterns and distributions, to reconstruct routes, to recognize the proximity of locations, and to identify regional and hierarchical relationships. The accuracy and speed of answers will be measured and tested to determine whether those who acquire information through the "bottoms up" approach replicated by viewing the slides retain gain as much configurational knowledge as those who have the "birdseye" perspectives from viewing maps. This project will directly test hypotheses about the efficacy of different means of obtaining spatial information. The results of these experiments will significantly enhance our knowledge of how people form spatial understandings, of why they behave as they do in different spatial contexts, and how geographic education might be altered to become more effective.