A cognitive map is a concept from psychology and anthropology that refers to the mental representation of spatial relationships and environments. It’s how humans (and other animals) internally visualize and navigate the world around them.
🌍 Definition
- Cognitive Map: An internal, mental model of spatial layouts, routes, and landmarks that guides navigation and orientation.
- Origin of Term: Coined by psychologist Edward Tolman (1948) in studies of rats navigating mazes.
- Broader Use: In anthropology and sociology, it extends to mental representations of social, cultural, or conceptual spaces.
🔑 Characteristics
- Spatial Representation: Encodes locations, distances, and directions.
- Landmarks & Paths: Anchored by memorable features (mountains, rivers, buildings).
- Flexibility: Allows individuals to plan new routes, not just repeat learned ones.
- Beyond Geography: Can represent abstract domains (e.g., social networks, cultural categories).
📚 Applications
Psychology & Neuroscience
- Rats in Tolman’s maze experiments demonstrated internal maps rather than simple stimulus-response learning.
- Human hippocampus plays a key role in forming cognitive maps.
Anthropology & Sociology
- Ethnographic Studies: Indigenous groups often have rich cognitive maps of landscapes, encoded in oral traditions.
- Cultural Models: Cognitive maps can represent social hierarchies, kinship systems, or cosmologies.
Archaeology
- Settlement layouts and ritual pathways reflect shared cognitive maps of sacred and social space.
Industrial & Modern Contexts
- Urban planning and wayfinding design rely on understanding how people form cognitive maps of cities.
- In business, “cognitive mapping” is used to chart decision-making processes or organizational structures.
In short: A cognitive map is the mental representation of spatial or conceptual environments, crucial for navigation, cultural identity, and anthropological analysis.
