ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the possible role of distance cognition for choices between driving and walking at short distances. Cognitive distance at the urban scale is frequently inferred from cognitive representations or cognitive maps of large-scale urban environments. Distance is an important factor influencing people’s choice of driving rather than walking. Factors making cognitive distance shorter or longer should therefore affect the threshold for driving. If cognitive distance is shorter than actual distance, then the driving threshold should increase and the frequency of short car trips could possibly decrease. The implication is that preference for driving increases nonlinearly with distance, and that factors affecting cognitive distance affect preference for driving. The feature-accumulation hypothesis has been used to account for the route-angularity effect, where the number of turns is considered to be an environmental feature increasing cognitive distance. In the next section, distance cognition research is reviewed in greater detail, and the most salient of these factors are examined.
