1. Mind and Maze Ann Sloan Devlin, 2001 Preetha Lakshmi Chris Mueller http://www.cs.umn.edu/~cmueller/cs8715/ CSCI 8715 Professor Shashi Shekhar

2. Outline Overview of Mind and Maze Common themes Key concepts  Development of spatial cognition  Neuropsychology  Natural language  Applications: maps and urban planning Critique Conclusion

3. What is Mind and Maze A summary of research in fields related to spatial cognition:  Cognitive development  Gender studies  Neuropsychology  Map-making  Urban Planning A loose framework for classifying research in these disparate fields

4. What is the problem?  There is need for a coherent, comprehensive overview of spatial cognition research. Why is it important?  Spatial cognition research guides many industries, including map-making, urban planning, architecture, GIS, etc. Why is it hard?  Research in these areas is divided among many journals, books, and disciplines. Related work  The book is a survey of related work across many fields.

5. Novelty  This is a one-of-a-kind book. It was published in 2003, and presents relatively new research. Validation  The author claims a “review of the research in detail”. We do not know the author's research methodology, but we trust it was thorough. Assumption  Only the five fields of spatial development, gender studies, neuropsychology, urban planning, and map-making are relevant to the book.

6. Overview Input: Five disciplines: cognitive development, gender studies, neuropsychology, map-making, and urban planning. Output: A general-purpose overview of spatial cognition. Objective: Combine the five disciplines separate theories into a substantive whole. Constraints: Research outside of these five disciplines is not considered. Relevance to CS8715: A theoretical/psychological background on human understanding of space.

7. Themes in Spatial Cognition landmarks: landmarks and relationships among them form the basis for how we think about space chunking: people separate spatial information into aggregate chunks to help with processing Spatial understanding is a form of non-Euclidean geometry Gestalt's principles: the whole cannot be understood by just looking at the parts

8. Development of Spatial Cognition Spatial understanding develops over time; children tend to be more egocentric Proposed model for spatial understanding: landmarks are learned first  hierarchies indicate importance routes are relationships between landmarks routes are built into networks B A Work Home D E C

9. Mother as Landmark Mother Child (9 mos. old)‏ Base orientation Children are cued to look at the left screen. A colored slide appears. Child rotated 180° Mother remains stationary Child rotated 180° Mother's movement matches infant's rotation 80% accuracy in determining which screen should be looked at 43% accuracy in determining which screen should be looked at

10. Movement and self-motion Movement through an environment is critical for spatial understanding, especially compared to film or slides of a space Self-motion promotes better spatial understanding than other forms of movement Virtual 3d tours of spaces have proven effective for developing a spatial understanding

11. Cognitive Maps Cognitive maps are another way to conceptualize human understanding of space. In these decision- based models, we see four components:  Recognizing where one is located  Predicting what will happen next  Determining the outcome of an action (+/-)‏  Acting out a plan

12. Anchor Point Theory Anchor points are points of “cognitive salience,” similar to landmarks. In a case study involving “choice points” and “plots” within a neighborhood with an 11-yr-old boy, researchers drew three main conclusions:  saliency of a plot decreases with distance from major choice points  the more alternative actions possible at a choice point, the greater its importance  the choice points along a route (where navigational decisions are made) are similar to the route's storage in long-term memory

13. Natural Language and Spatial Cognition Natural language plays an important role in communicating spatial information Hemispherical brain division:  left brain processes complex spatial information and visual interpretation  right brain processes simple spatial tasks e.g. line orientation Language is processed in left brain, where it might be closely related to complex spatial cognitive tasks When given a task to describe a place, most people (>80%) provided a high-level description rather than route or way- finding descriptions.

14. Neurophysiology of Spatial Cognition (O'Keefe 1978)‏ (McNaughton, et al 2006)‏ neuron firings indicate grid patterns Neurons support cognition of relative directional motion based on strength of synaptic activity in “head direction cells” Hippocampus neuronal structures also exist that track relative translational distance measurements; stored in repeating orthogonal grids of “place cells” (torus topology) Grids of place cells are uniquely patterned to match unique environments; upon entering a new environment, a new grid is created, but existing patterns are used for previously visited environments.

15. Maps Euclidean information is difficult for many to understand Legibility is crucial Simplification, classification, symbolization Should not contain too much clutter Important landmarks should be made clearly visible Uniformity among colors and styles

18. Gestalt's Principles Proximity Chunking images from http://www.atpm.com/9.10/design.shtml

19. Urban Planning: the Grid A B A B

20. Urban Planning: Vocabulary paths: roads and sidewalks edges: a fence or river bank districts: neighborhoods nodes: major intersections or transit terminals  Similar to “landmarks” or “anchor points” in cognitive psychology literature landmarks: may be cultural or historic

21. Rewriting Mind and Maze Structure content by concept rather than by author/timeline  demonstrate similarities among research  provide richer chapter summaries and a conclusion to the book as a whole Give more energy to neuropsychology Prune outdated and irrelevant research Address more topics in Urban Planning, e.g. sustainability and scalability Discuss a wider set of applications: architecture, virtual reality, video games, user interfaces, etc.

22. Conclusion Mind and Maze is an overview of spatial cognition research Key concepts  Landmarks  Gestalt's principles  Language/spatial correlation  Grids and hierarchies for maps and urban planning Our final critique: The book fails to live up to its potential.

23. Questions? References [1] Ann Sloan Devlin. Mind and Maze. Praeger Publishers. Wesport, Connecticut. 2001. [2] John O'Keefe and Lynn Nadel. The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map. Oxford Univeristy Press. 1978. [3] Bruce L. McNaughton, Francesco P. Battalgia, Ole Jensen, Edvard I. Moser, May-Britt Moser. Path integration and the neural basis of the 'cognitive map'. Nature. Volume 7, August 2006, pp. 663-678.