Urban spatial cognition in a middle eastern city : a case study of ankara, turkey

概要

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The aim of the present study is to examine both the general and specific properties of cognitive maps in a Middle Eastern city from a cross-cultural viewpoint. The author made a spatial analysis of the data derived from the university students in Ankara, Turkey. Their cognitive maps entailed some properties common to the people in Western countries, being generally explained by an information-processing model of cognitive science (e.g., rotation and alignment heuristics, implicit scaling) in the same way as the previous studies. The elements of cognitive maps, however, closely reflected the characteristics of the study area. The analysis of the sketch maps and maps picked out from media and billboards implied that the cognitive map of Ankara was characterized by street network, rotaries, and mosques. In addition, the direction of their cognitive maps indicated a marked difference from the actual ones: the cognitive maps put South at the top of them. This can be attributed to the limited number of correct maps available to survey the city as well as the religious habit of Moslems (viz., sacred meaning of South) and the extent of the subjects' familiar space within the city.
首都大学東京の論文