Toward a Cognitive Spatial Theory

Abstract

Our knowledge of the external world impinges upon our actions, and our acts affect our knowledge. The relationship between behavior and knowledge is mutual or circular, and exceedingly complex. In this paper we simplify and compartmentalize this mutual relationship and focus particularly on the elementary observation that where one lives, where one travels, and what one does affects what one knows of and understands about the world. In what way can we account for this observation? Models have been constructed which attempt to explain how an individual acquires information relevant to behavior and how that information affects behavior. Thus, Webber [14, pp. 110-14] provides normative models of the manner in which a profit maximizing firm collects the information basic to decisions about plant location; Burnett [2, 3] models the choice of shops by people who are gradually acquiring information about a retail system; Golledge and Brown [6] have indicated some of the uses of decision theory in examining market behavior; and King and Golledge [8] have illustrated some applications of Bayesian decision theory to such situations. In all these cases, the information gathered is relevant to the way in which the individual behaves-behavior changes as the amount and quality of available information increases. Here we focus attention on behavior, and