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Montello, D. R. (1993). Scale and multiple psychologies of space. In A. U. Frank & I. Campari (Eds.), Spatial information theory: A theoretical basis for GIS (pp. 312-321). Proceedings of COSIT '93. Berlin: Springer -Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Scie nce 716.
Scale and Multiple Psychologies of Space
Daniel R. Montello
Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA
Abstract. The importance of scale to the psychology of space (perception, thinking, memory, behavior) is discussed. It is maintained that scale has an important influence on how humans treat spatial information and that several qualitatively distinct scale classes of space exist. Past systems of classification are reviewed and some novel terms and distinctions are introduced. Empirical evidence for the need to distinguish between spatial scales is presented. Some implications of these scale distinctions are briefly considered and research needs identified.
1 Introduction
"...the Schools of Cartography sketched a Map of the Empire which was of the size of the Empire and coincided at every point with it. Less Addicted to the Study of Cartography, the Following Generations comprehended that this dilated Map was Useless and, not without Impiety, delivered it to the Inclemencies of the Sun and of the Winters." Suárez Miranda, On Exactitude in Science [2, p.123]
Of what import is spatial scale? As a problem for formal analysis, the absolute spatial scale of a geometric object is largely irrelevant. The relationships between sides, angles, etc., are scale- independent; the properties of an isosceles right-triangle hold no matter its size. As a problem for geography, the "science of space", scale has always been a concern of cartographic coding and decoding. But once the scale of the cartographic representation is fixed, all of the decisions made with the map become largely scale -independent. A clustered pattern is a clustered pattern. It is
this scale-independence of maps, of course, that gives them their great power and utility. They represent spatial relations and patterns of any size at whatever convenient scale fits on our laps, in the glove compartments of our cars, or on the computer monitors of our geographic information systems. So properties of space, or relations between objects in space, are typically treated as scale- independent when studied as formal problems and, for the most part, as geographic problems. But when studied as a problem for human perception, thought, and behavior (i.e., when studied as a psychological problem), it is the thesis of the present essay that space is not scale-independent. "Space is not space is not space" when it comes to human psychology. Instead, multiple spatial
psychologies are called for. And these will not differ in a merely quantitative way, but as I hope to show, in a qualitative way. This thesis is not particularly novel, as such. Below I review previous conceptual distinctions about scales of psychological space but also introduce some
terms and distinctions of my own. Furthermore, I add some empirical justification to the conceptual justifications for classifying psychological space into multiple scale classes. Finally,
the importance of the issue is considered, and some pressing questions for future research are outlined. A terminological confusion must be addressed at the outset. My dictionary defines scale as (among other things) the "ratio between the dimensions of a representation and those of the thing that it represents", in other words, the relative size of a representation. Thus, a large-scale map is large compared to the space it represents, at least relative to a small-scale map. Of course, even very large-scale maps are commonly much smaller than the spaces they represent. Behavioral scientists, on the other hand, speak of large-scale spaces , spaces that are relatively large compared to small-scale spaces. But more than a statement about the relative sizes of spaces, as I discuss below, this terminology reflects a concern for the size of a space relative to a person, more precisely, to a person's body and action (e.g., looking, walking). Thus large -scale spaces are large relative to a person. Large-scale spaces might be less ambiguously termed "large -size spaces", but such a terminology ignores the critical role that scale relative to the organism plays in the psychological properties of spaces differing in size [cf. 25]. The classificatory terms I introduce below will avoid this confusion because the word scale is not used in them.
2 Previous Scale Distinctions
Researchers studying orientation and navigation have long made a distinction between "proximate" or "near" space and "distal" or "far" space [see 23, 24, and the earlier references cited there]. The former can be apprehended from one spot; the latter require locomotion for their apprehension. In the literature on distance estimation, such a distinction is made between "perceptual" and "cognitive" distance [e.g., 3]. Piaget did not explicitly consider the importance of size or scale per se in his extensive body of work on the development of spatial knowledge [e.g., 19], other than the problem of translating between different scales. He did imply that scale was important, however, in so far as a mature "Euclidean" knowledge of spatial layout, involving externally-based co-ordinate systems or reference frames, depends in his theory on experience with multiple perspectives. Knowledge of smaller objects in themselves does not require this. The most influential work on this topic is certainly the chapter by Ittelson [11]. In it, he compared "environmental" space with the object space of traditional space perception research. He discussed several special aspects of environments as spaces and urged the need to study spatial perception within the context of environments. Unlike objects, the environment "surrounds, enfolds, engulfs" [p.13]. The role of scale is critical: "Environments are necessarily
larger than that which they surround...large in relation to man....large enough to permit, and indeed require, movement in order to encounter all aspects of the situation....large-scale environments, extending from rooms through houses, neighborhoods, cities, countrysides, to the whole universe in size....require[s] some process of spatial and temporal summation" [p.13]. In addition, Ittelson noted that information about environments is acquired multimodally, not through a single sense, and that more information is provided than can be processed in any reasonably finite period of time. These distinctions clearly depend to a large extent on the relative size of environmental and object spaces. Many writers have cited Ittelson's distinctions [1, 13, 25], typically in order to characterize
from one place without appreciable locomotion. It may be usefully subdivided into pictorial and object spaces, the former referring to small flat spaces and the latter to small 3-D spaces. Figural space is the space of pictures, small objects, distant landmarks, and the like. Although one may
sometimes haptically manipulate (touch) objects to apprehend their spatial properties, no appreciable movement of the entire body is required.
Vista space is projectively as large or larger than the body but can be visually apprehended from a single place without appreciable locomotion. It is the space of single rooms, town squares, small valleys, and horizons. Environmental space is projectively larger than the body and surrounds it. It is in fact too large and otherwise obscured to apprehend directly without considerable locomotion, and is thus usually thought to require the integration of information over significant periods of time. It is the space of buildings, neighborhoods, and cities. Although environmental spaces cannot be apprehended in brief time periods, I maintain that their spatial properties can be apprehended from direct experience alone, given enough exposure to them. Geographical space is projectively much larger than the body and cannot be apprehended directly through locomotion; rather, it must be learned via symbolic representations such as maps or models that essentially reduce the geographical space to figural space. This bears repeating: Maps represent environmental and geographic spaces, but are themselves instances of pictorial space! I therefore expect the psychological study of map use to draw directly on the psychology of pictorial space rather than on the psychology of environmental space. States, countries, and the solar system are good examples of geographical spaces (not withstanding the earth-bound reference in the word geographic ). The surface of the earth as seen from an airplane, however, would constitute a vista space because of its small projective size and our consequent ability to apprehend it directly from our seat in the plane. One point of clarification: Geographers have very commonly studied spaces at what I have defined as a geographic scale. But by choosing this label, I do not mean in the least to dictate the "appropriate" spatial scale for geographers. I have no problem with the view that geographers can profitably apply their spatio-temporal tool kit to whatever scale they wish. Indeed, as I have said, the maps and computer images studied so often by geographers are instances of figural spaces.
4 Some Empirical Evidence
I now review some empirical evidence that justifies classifying psychological space into several classes on the basis of scale. Very little research has been done explicitly for the purpose of establishing classes of psychological scales; the issue is a potentially fruitful one for generating researchable questions. Given this paucity of research and the limited space of the present format, I will only briefly discuss three bodies of evidence: (1) the effects of learning from maps vs. from direct environmental experience, (2) differences in the frames-of-reference
used to organize and manipulate spatial knowledge at different scales, and (3) attempts to measure individual differences in spatial ability at different scales. Some of the earliest work to look at maps vs. direct environmental experience was done by Evans and Pezdek [4; see also, 26]. They had subjects judge the accuracy of relative positions of triads of US cities. Time to respond was a linearly increasing function of the degree of rotation of the triad from 0° (north to the top, as in standard cartographic convention). This pattern was also found when subjects judged triads of campus buildings that were learned from a map. However, it was not found when subjects learned the campus layout from direct experience; response-time was roughly equal no matter in what orientation the stimuli were presented. Evans and Pezdek
suggested that the multiple perspectives of direct experience was responsible for the lack of an alignment effect. However, an important paper by Presson et al. [21] presents strong evidence that
multiplicity of perspectives does not, in itself, explain how scale influences the way we treat spatial information. They had subjects learn simple paths marked on plastic sheets, imagine they
were standing at one of the places on the path, and then make directional judgments between places on the paths. Thus, the orientations of the learned space and the judgment space could be aligned or misaligned. Several aspects of the paths and procedures were systematically and independently varied: the absolute size of the space from which the path was learned (.36 m^2 to 13.7 m^2 , i.e., ranging from "map size" to "room size"), whether the space was described as a "map" or a "path", and the amount of scale translation necessary to match the space to another path. In all cases, the spaces were learned by inspection from a single vantage point. Only the absolute size of the path space (the plastic sheet) influenced the occurrence of alignment effects. That is, subjects retrieved spatial knowledge in an orientation-specific manner when they learned it from a small spatial representation; they made large errors when asked to indicate directions as if they were viewing the space from a misaligned perspective (e.g., they learned the space with point 3 in front of point 2, but when judging directions, they were asked to imagine they were standing so that 2 was in front of 3). When subjects learned the space from a large representation, on the other hand, they retrieved spatial knowledge in an orientation-free manner; their errors did not differ in size as a function of the perspective from which they were asked to imagine the space. The fact that a switch from orientation-specific to orientation-free coding occurred somewhere around 5-6 m^2 is consistent with the importance of body size in scaling spaces. Empirical work on frames-of-reference provides another body of evidence for the importance of distinguishing psychological spaces according to scale. While spatial perception and knowledge at any scale involves reference frames (the points, objects, or axes relative to which spatial locations are defined), the particular type of frame differs at different scales. Models of spatial perception and knowledge commonly acknowledge this [e.g., 5]. Acredolo [1] reviewed evidence from her lab showing that the tendency to code space egocentrically (with reference to one's own location) depends in part on scale. Huttenlocher and Presson [10] asked subjects to answer questions about object locations in a small table -top space vs. a larger room space. The questions could be answered by mentally moving either the object array or one's body; the former was more common with the small space, the latter with the room space. Another property of reference frames that has been investigated is the way they explain patterns of distortions in locational judgments. Huttenlocher et al. [9] found that subjects distorted their memories for the location of dots within a small circle towards the center axes of the four quadrants of the circle (i.e., towards the diagonals) [but see 27]. A very different pattern was found by Sadalla and Montello [22], however, who had vision-restricted subjects estimate headings after walking a pathway in a large room. Their subjects distorted path headings towards
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