Abstract
It is commonly recognized that free-hand sketch maps are influenced by cognitive impacts and therefore sketch maps are incomplete, distorted, and schematized. This makes it difficult to achieve a one-to-one alignment between a sketch map and its corresponding geo-referenced metric map. Nevertheless, sketch maps are still useful to communicate spatial knowledge, indicating that sketch maps contain certain spatial information that is robust to cognitive impacts. In existing studies, sketch maps are used frequently to measure cognitive maps. However, little work has been done on invariant spatial information in sketch maps, which is the information of spatial configurations representing correctly the real world. We aim to study such information from a cognitive perspective. This paper first presents basic spatial objects identified in sketch maps and then introduces sketch aspects that capture invariant spatial information. The accuracy and reliability of these aspects were evaluated by a human study. We collected sketch maps from participants, extracted and measured spatial relations of identified spatial objects, and in the end analyzed the accuracy and statistical significance of these relations. Based on the statistical survey, we propose in this paper a set of seven sketch aspects that constitute invariant spatial information, along with a spatial analysis method to measure them. The findings of these aspects help to understand which spatial information is preserved under the transformation from the physical world to human sketch maps.
Highlights
Sketch maps in history have long been used to recall, visualize, and communicate spatial knowledge about spatial scenes
Regarding the characteristics of sketch maps and the fact that they can be used to communicate spatial information, there are two principles being followed in this paper: first, sketch maps necessarily contain invariant spatial information in order for people to be able to use them in the physical environment; second, cognitive impacts should be taken into account when sketch maps are under analysis because they cause distortions and schematizations in sketch maps
There is a large body of literature on spatial information that is typically distorted in sketch maps
Summary
Sketch maps in history have long been used to recall, visualize, and communicate spatial knowledge about spatial scenes. Most people are able to draw maps to convey their spatial knowledge (e.g., [19]) These sketch maps are usually incomplete, distorted, and schematized due to cognitive impacts [9, 29, 31]. Regarding the characteristics of sketch maps and the fact that they can be used to communicate spatial information, there are two principles being followed in this paper: first, sketch maps necessarily contain invariant spatial information (originated in cognitive maps) in order for people to be able to use them in the physical environment; second, cognitive impacts should be taken into account when sketch maps are under analysis because they cause distortions and schematizations in sketch maps
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