ABSTRACT
This edited collection explores the spatial, social, psychological, and behavioral aspects of spatial cognition as it occurs in human collectives of two or more people, whether intentional collectives such as work teams or unintentional collectives such as crowds. Our approach integrates three bodies of research: the science of spatial cognition as developed by psychologists, behavioral geographers, neuroscientists, linguists, and others; the science of team cognition as developed by industrial/organizational psychologists, social psychologists, sociologists, and others; and the science of spatial information, as developed by analytic geographers and cartographers, operations researchers, and others. The objective of these transdisciplinary efforts is to push outward the boundaries of these research areas by considering connections among them. Current practice is limited because the separate research disciplines have not integrated their research in ways that could open new intellectual frontiers. While there is some mutual awareness of complementary efforts among these three groups of researchers, there has not been a concerted effort to identify the commonalities, differences, and opportunities for research advances that are possible when the disciplines work in collaboration. Presented here is a novel melding of three complementary, but largely separate knowledge domains. In this chapter, we introduce, motivate, and organize the topic.
