What Is a Mental Map?Author(s): Elspeth GrahamSource: Area, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1976), pp. 259-262Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20001137 .

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What is a mental map?

Elspeth Graham, University of St Andrews

Sunnmary. Many recent writers in the field of perception studies have based their work on the ' mental map ' or related concepts. Their research has not yet led to successful theory construction, and this, it is suggested, is the direct result of the basic incoherence

of the central concept.

In recent years geographers have become more and more concerned to intro

duce notions of differential perception into their geographical analysis. Many appear to have been considerably influenced by psychological writings and have introduced the concept of the 'mental map' which, it is promised, will aid our

theoretical understanding of, amongst other things, location decisions. If we want to know what Mr A is planning we must first know how he sees the world.

The concept of a mental map

Phillip Sarre in his discussion of perception provides us with a definition which is very close to the idea of a mental map, namely: ' a model of the environment

which is built up over time in the individual's brain '.' The use of this notion of mental storage is widespread. Goodey, introducing his review of the perception literature writes, ' stated simply this paper is concerned with the world outside and the images in our heads. . And Gould and White share this notion of 'our images ' as ' the maps and models of the world we carry around with us '.3

Downs characterizes the process of perception by what he calls an inter-related

system linking people's images of the environment with expressions of behaviour.4 Here we have ' images' playing a key role. L. J. Wood follows Downs when he comments, 'in order to break into the system one must study

the images, which are the points of contact between people and their environ ment '. Finally, Bordessa confirms this preoccupation with images when he

writes: ' The perception or mental image of the world that is held by individuals

is at the root of all studies of perception conducted by geographers '.6 What then is a mental map? We understand well what maps are, but what is

the force of calling them ' mental ' maps ? In Stea we find a ' mental map ' as an ' image' of the larger environment. This results apparently from the mental

filtering and coding of sensory data and is something subjective, private, unique. In practical terms we are told, ' it provides for the orientation, comfort and movement of man within his environment ',7 and as one of the consequences of being without a mental map in a busy or unfamiliar city is said to be the

feeling of uneasiness experienced, it would appear that knowledge of the area

concerned is a key factor in the formation of such maps. And yet this creates

many problems, for how do we obtain these maps? How many do we have?

And where do we keep the ones we've got? Just how much knowledge of an

area do we require before we can obtain or retain a mental map? Can I be said

to have a mental map of London if I visited the city for the first time last week?

Or does it take a number of visits before I can claim to have formed a mental

spatial schema? If so, how many? Again, my familiarity with a certain town

may have been considerable but, because I have not visited that area at all in

259

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260 What's in a mental map?

the last ten years, I might if I did return be unable to find my way about easily. How can this be explained in terms of mental maps? These questions may appear trivial or outwith the scope of geography, but if we are to make sense of the characterization of mental maps as ' images in the head', then we must at least be able to indicate what kinds of answers would be appropriate.

The location of a mental map

I will take one particular set of claims to illustrate the nature of the problem involved; namely claims about where we keep our mental maps. Consider

mental maps as being stored in the brain. This seems to imply some sort of image or picture of, for example, London which can be said to be located inside the head. But surely images are not the sorts of things which have a location in space, they are not, in fact, material objects at all. It is not only that as Stea points out, ' in physiological fact, we do not know that such maps exist . .

We have no reason to suppose that we will find patterns isomorphic to the larger world, or portions of the larger world, on the cerebral cortex ',8 but that it does not make sense even to suppose that we might find such patterns im printed on the brain. Maps are not the sorts of things that one finds during a surgical operation.

Not many geographers it may be objected would want to claim that they were, and yet' mental images' and ' stored in the head' make frequent appear ances in the literature. What then can they mean? One cannot escape the prob lems by protesting that the proper place for mental images is, of course, the

mind. For surely the mind cannot be said to have material existence, i.e. exis tence in space, and it is just because of this that it does not make sense to claim that something might be found inside it. Spatial vocabulary has no relevance to non-spatial concepts. We are dealing at best with a very elusive creature.

Problems of ' black-box ' phenomena

Despite this many geographers appear intent on trying to expose the geographic content of people's mental images. Because of the way they characterize this 'black box' phenomenon, however, I would suggest that they start with a

concept which can be of little use to them. Each person's mental image is apparently unique-' his own private geography'-and thus the geographer is left entirely dependent on the goodwill, cooperation, and integrity of the individuals whose mental maps he wishes to examine. But that is not the end of the matter. 1 may, for example, have a mental map of London which closely resembles an actual map of New York, but because I am such a bad cartographer

when I attempt to draw my mental map it appears more like an actual map of London. How then is the geographer to know that my mental map is actually closer to the map of New York? Also if one were to sketch again one's mental

map a week after, or even the day after, one's first attempt the maps would almost certainly differ. What then would be the value to the geographer of these very temporary mental images?

Avoiding the problems Stea attempts to avoid these problems in the only way possible, by claiming that the study of mental maps need not necessarily be ' geography in the head'. ' It matters not a whit', he adds, ' that we cannot directly observe a "mental

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What is a mental map? 261

map" or even that we cannot know for sure that it is actually "there"; if a subject behaves as if such a map existed, it is sufficient justification for the

model.'9 But this is no solution, for in order to know that someone is behaving as if he were following a mental map we must first know what it would be for someone to be following a mental map and this is precisely what we could not

make sense of in the first place. The coherence of the remark 'he rushed up the street as if he were being pursued by the police' depends entirely upon the coherence of the remark ' he rushed up the street pursued by the police '. If the latter is unintelligible then so is the former.

Explanation and human behaviour In the explanation of behaviour it appears to be no help at all to appeal to

mental maps. I may make my way from A to B by a circuitous route, but that behaviour is not in any way explained by remarking that I was following my

mental map. If this mental image is some sort of personal idea of the layout of a city, then in any particular case we can never tell if someone is following his private map or not. If, on the other hand it is impossible for him not to follow it then how could we distinguish between his mistakes and the idiosyncracies of his personal image? Suppose that in taking a circuitious route from A to B, I had in fact made a mistake and had imagined that the route I had taken was the shortest one between the two points. If we are to claim that I was at the same time following my mental map-this was what I supposed to be the shortest path-then either there is no room for suggesting that I made a mistake (and this would seem absurd as I might be aware even before arriving at B that I had not in fact chosen the shortest route), or we would have to say that

my mental map itself was mistaken, and this, apart from reducing the claims of differential perception to ' some people act on wrong information' is simply a misleading way of saying that I forgot or didn't know about the shorter route.

The form of explanation appropriate to actions of this sort is the advancement of reasons for acting, and to claim that I went from A to B by some roundabout way because I was following my mental map is to fail to meet the basic criteria of intelligibility. We all know what it is to remember because we are always remembering places we have seen, and things we have done. We certainly find our way around a town successfully because we have remembered the location of the places we wished to visit, but then this is no great revelation for we cannot act upon information we have forgotten. We also understand well what it is to have a slip of memory or to be mistaken about something we claimed to remem ber; so this account copes better with such everyday occurrences than does that of the mental map.

We have seen that the claim that a person can be said to have or possess, in some strong sense, a mental map, cannot be rendered coherent, for the notion of possession is only appropriate in relation to material objects. The fact that we can see objects and hear sounds at one time and recall them later does not imply that they must have been stored somewhere in between times. If one asks 'where does a flame come from when we strike a match?', clearly we are not looking for an answer in terms of a physical location, for flames are not the sorts of things that could be stored anywhere. In the same way memories are not the sorts of things about which it makes sense to claim that they are stored somewhere. Because of this the concept of a mental map loses much of its appeal and is reduced to the weaker claim about people behaving as if they

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262 What is a mental map?

were following such a map. And to say that both are incoherent is a conceptual remark. It is the concept of the 'mental map' which cannot be rendered coherent and no increase in our stock of knowledge or expertise (either that of the geographer or the psychologist) could, logically, have any bearing on the coherence or otherwise of a concept.10 Thus we cannot sit back and wait for developments in psychology to aid our studies of mental maps. If conceptual confusion is the charge, then to avoid the charge we must avoid the confusion. Explanation in the sphere of spatial behaviour gains nothing by appealing to notions of image storage. In every day life we know very well how to explain people's behaviour. We do it all the time. If then we are to attempt generalized explanations of such behaviour surely they must embrace the same form as that we already use. Has not our elusive creature turned out to be illusory?

Notes 1. P. Sarre (ed.) 'Channels of synthesis-perception and diffusion' Open University Source

Book (1973), 16 2. B. Goodey, 'Perception of the environment', University of Birmingham Centre for Urban

and Regional Studies, Occasional Paper 17 (1971), 1 3. P. Gould and R. White, Mental maps (1974), 192. It should be noted that much of this

book is devoted to the presentation of aggregate preference surfaces constructed on a standard map of Britain. I take this to be a quite different enterprise from that of eliciting what might be characterized as personal distortions of space. The present paper is con cerned entirely with the latter

4. R. M. Downs, ' Approaches to and problems in the measurement of geographical space perception', Seminar Paper Series A, No. 9, Department of Geography, University of Bristol (1967)

5. L. J Wood, 'Perception studies in geography', Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. 50 (1970), 131 6. R. Bordessa, 'Perception research in Geography: an appraisal and contribution to urban

perception', University of Newcastle Department of Geography Seminar Papers, No. 8 (1969), 1

7. D. C. D. Pocock, 'City of the mind: a review of mental maps of urban areas', Scott. Geogr. Mag. 88 (1972), 2, 115

8. D. Stea, ' The measurement of mental maps: an experimental model for studying concep tual spaces', in K. R. Cox and R. G. Golledge (eds.) Behavioural problems in geography: a symposium, North Western University Studies in Geography 17, (1969), 230

9. Ibid., 235 10. Perhaps another example might clarify this point. The concept of a square-circle is, 1

hope, obviously incoherent, the separate concepts of a square and a circle being geo metrically incompatible with each other. Thus we can confidently state that no matter how much ' research ' is done and no matter how ingenious the researcher he could never square a circle, for he cannot do what it is logically impossible to do

How to give a conference paper If you are giving a paper at Newcastle upon Tyne you might like to heed the useful advice to speakers which was circulated in the ' Notes for session organizers ' compiled by Prof. R. U. Cooke when he was IBG Conference Secretary. (Some readers might recognize the extracts as their own!)

'The maximum speaking speed is 120 words per minute-this is too fast. A slide will roughly take the time of 50 words. A very rough approximation is 400 words per five

minutes.' ' One fact per slide is best.' ' Too many papers take the form of an inaudible soliloquy in front of a series of invisible tables.' ' Speakers going beyond the allotted time show themselves to be conceited, incompetent and ill-mannered.' ' Incomplete

work is usually more interesting than completed work.' Or, in short, 'Stand up, speak up, shut up'.

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