Tony Hall Cycling in Regents Park (8229)

Cognitive maps
Cognitive maps have been widely studied by psychologists, behaviour researchers, planners, geographers, and are defined as sketchy, incomplete, distorted, simplified and idiosyncratic personal representation of the environment we experience (Bell, 1996), where everything is organised in terms of places (spatial limits), spatial relations (distances, inclusions), and travel plans.
So, cognitive maps are a very personal representation of the familiar environment that we all experience (Bell, 1996); as a way to organise the information perceived, they have significant influence on our reactions to environmental settings in determined circumstances.
In organising information, cognitive maps establish hierarchies, orders and roles among features, functions and meanings, trying to reduce complexity to manageable levels, where the amount of inputs is controllable. The nature of cognitive maps then responds to a fundamental human need, that of orientation which is, according to Sanoff's definition, the need of …knowing our relative position in a place (Sanoff 1991).

Cognitive Mapping in Radio Drama