ABSTRACT
A map can be thought of as an expression of a cartographer’s ideas, a device for storing spatial information and a source of knowledge for the map reader. Maps are two- or three-dimensional spatial structures that represent some part of the environment and communicate information about the environment. Maps differ from photographs of the environment in that someone has organized the spatial data and represented it as spatial information to be communicated. A number of visual search studies have been conducted with maps that have focused on map symbols, locations with particular colours, and boundaries with particular colours. Understanding how spatial knowledge is learned from maps and stored in long-term memory is a challenging research topic. It would seem reasonable to assume that things already know might help us learn new things more effectively. The information encoded into the artificial cognitive map related to population, employment, race, politics, income, and regional location.
