CARTOGRAPHY AND SPATIAL COGNITION:
COGNITIVE MAPPING OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL SPACE
KNOWLEDGE
Linda Soraya Issmael, Paulo Márcio Leal de Menezes
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro – UFRJ – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geografia, Instituto Militar de
Engenharia – IME – Seção de Engenharia Cartográfica
ABSTRACT
Understanding how the process of cognitive maps construction works is one of the cartographic questions. The
cognitive map is a representative mental scheme of the perceived environment through the processes of spatial
perception and cognition. It is necessary to understand how the spatial knowledge acquisition process is rendered, to
understand the types of human behaviors, the human capacity to develop spatial abilities, the PIAGET & INHELDER
(1967) theory about environmental learning for helping in the formulation of cartographic representation rules, that
reflect this vision of groups of people, and that can be linked to the philosophy of the methods that externally represent
cognitive maps process mental information. Creating representations that assist a specific group may be the beginning
of generation of solid and close rules, that can be solve the lack of cartographic standardization. This work has the
objective of developing a reflection on subjects that can answer those questions.
1. INTRODUCTION
In the areas of the knowledge of Geography Human and Ambiental and Cognitive Psychology has increased the
studies with approaches in the perception of the geographic space. According to VITTE and GUERRA (2004), to study
the geographic space by means of a perceptive vision has attracted the attentions and the inquiries having looked for to
add this humanist dimension, mainly from the year of 1970, where it had a considerable increase in the research and
reflections on this problematic one. The boarding in Ambiental Psychology, cited previously, it is explained by the fact
of that this if worries about the interaction between the physical environment and human behavior (HOGG and
VAUGHAN, 1995). The understanding of HOW processes the human behavior before diverse environments and the
acquisition of the spatial knowledge can assist and complement this study, besides consequently allowing to elaborate
methods for representation of this knowledge, what it interests the area of Cartography, as for the used symbologies.
With base in these inquiries carried out in the cited areas of the knowledge and a general way, this work will
approach relative aspects to the space behavior and the new environment models, to the spatial perception and the
cognition, with a boarding also in the area of Psychiatry, in the acquisition of the spatial knowledge and in the methods
for the representation of the spatial knowledge.
2. SPATIAL BEHAVIOR AND ENVIRONMENT MODELS
Spatial behavior can be defined, according to GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997), as a sequence of human
procedures conscientiously or subconsciously directed, that occur in the external environment, that result in the changes
of localization through the time.
Another important concept is of learning, that is a process in which an activity originates or is modified through a
reply to a situation - since that the changes are not attributed total to a temporary state of organism (GOLLEDGE and
STIMSON, 1997).
The spatial behavior of the mankind is related not only to objects and the spatial phenomena that it finds in the
observable external environment, but also to the aspects that are not explicit visible.
The search for this new model of behavior brought the understanding that exists other environments beyond the
observable external environment. Interdisciplinary studies, according to GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997), had
indicated that multiple limitations imposed to the mankind spatial behavior for implicit ambient dimensions exist, that
are: economic, cultural, social, politics, legal, moral and other environments, that the physical limitations imposed by
the observable environment are so important how much.
This definition of new model of behavior is related to the concept that CHRISTOFOLETTI (2002) supplies of
environment. This definition possesses biological and social significance, focusing the context and the circumstances
that involve the alive being, being environment defined as "the conditions, circumstances and the influences under
which an organization or a system exists. It can be affected or described by the physical, biological and chemical
aspects, in such a way natural as constructed for the man. The environment is usually used to mention the conditions in
which the mankind lives" (BRACKLEY, 1988 In: CHRISTOFOLETTI, 2002). Of this form, the environment
represents the life conditions, development and growth of the human being, also including the climate, ground, waters
etc. Or either, all the physical and natural objects that compose the terrestrial surface are inserted in the environment
concept. Moreover, it can also be considered, the factors related to the life conditions, development and growth, as cited
previously, that they can be, of one it ampler forms, social, politicians, cultural, economic, natural, historical,
ideological factors, among others.
Soon, an interest for the perceptive, cognitive, ideological, philosophical, sociological and other environments
has been developed, that compose and would help to make to understand the dialectic relationship between the mankind
and the realities in which it lives.
3. SPATIAL PERCEPTION AND COGNITION
3.1 The Experience and the Conception of Space
Concepts exist on the forms as the Man processes the influence of the environment. One of these concepts is the
experience of the Man in relation to the space, that it is related to the affective answers reflected by the environment
and to the rules of attitudes, emotions and factors of the operated personality of the person in determined environment.
And the other concept is what it says respect to the conception of the space, that it is related to the particularitities of
each person, of the knowledge of each one, and is part of the spatial cognition, that it will be treated later.
3.2 The Spatial Perception
GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997) consider that the perception is the immediate apprehension of the
information on the environment by one or more of the senses and, complementing, a process, in which the person works
with interpretation rules, categorization and transformation of entry stimulus.
It is also emphasized the fact of the real world to be complex and transmits great amount of information about all
the aspects of the environment, in which only one small portion can be perceived by the people. This information is
captured through the senses of the person - vision, auditory, olfactory, taste and touch, as it can observe in Figure 1.
Taste
Haptic
(Touch)
Olfactory
(Smell)
Auditory
(Hearing)
Vision
(Sight)
Figure 1: The Human Senses.
Source: adapted of GOLD (1980) In: GOLLEDGE e STIMSON (1997)
It can be said that the captured or perceived information, for the senses, will form the perceived image of the
environment, which is called perceived environment, according to GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997).
According to Eunofre Marques, cited in BALLONE (2003), in the perception of the world, it is had, in the truth,
three levels: the sensorial level, where gets information made possible for the limitations of the each sense (the previous
perception to the conscientious reality - sensation); the neuropsychic level, that supplies information without content
(the perception that transforms itself in conscientious reality – neuroperception), and the sense-perceptive level (the
posterior perception to the conscientious reality – sense-perception), that opens all the potentialities that the knowledge
of the reality can offer. The first one is a pure field of Neurology, second of the Neuropsychology and third is restricted
to Psychology (medical) and the Psychopathology. The fact to represent completely distinct professional fields is also
data that disclose how much such activities differentiate between itself.
BALLONE (2003) also explains that still that two human beings divide the same biological and genetic
architecture, perhaps what one of them perceives as a color or a smell, it is not accurately equal to the color and to the
smell that the other perceives. Name to this perception is given the same, but, with certainty, it does not know if relate
accurately to the reality of the external world in the same way that the reality perceived for the fellow creature. Perhaps
never it will be known.
VITTE and GUERRA (2004) explain that the bases of perception are physiological and anatomical by means of
the senses. For spatial perception the reference to the visual perception is more usual, therefore it is through it that the
people express it and communicate itself with more frequency. Through the vision, it can be perceived the colors and
the forms, mainly.
What it is perceived is what it means something, therefore according to VITTE and GUERRA (2004), the
perception "is a mechanism of defense of I (self) against the unreliability and the anxiety. The perception of itself, of the
world, is not an isolated event, nor isolable of the daily life of the people. Of innumerable and multiple objects, it is
selected the one that it has meant for us, to take care of to our necessities and interests ".
Some psychological theories that deal with the perception, amongst which those cited by VITTE and GUERRA
(2004) are distinguished it: empiricist current, nonnativist current, Gestalt theory, theory of Skinmer, theory of Piaget.
All consider the existence of the percepts and the concepts. Percept is what it is perceived of the environment, in
accordance with the necessity and interest, and concept is what it is conceived, it is the "product of the filter of
intelligence, according to logical, to also take care of the necessity and interest ", or either, it is what it is conceited,
considering intelligence (dependent of the age, culture and genetic inheritance).
3.3 The Spatial Cognition
GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997) define cognition as the way of the information, after received, where it is
codified, stored and organized in the brain, in way that fits with the accumulated person knowledge and its values.
When KASTRUP (1999) explains on the cognition, she is mentioned: "to the eyes of a external observer, the
cognition appears in the form of individual behavior in a certain domain of existence, in specific contexts. The behavior
corresponds the changes of an alive being position, that an observer describes as movements or action in relation to a
definitive environment. Or, still, the description that makes the observer of the of changes state system as a way to
compensate the disturbances that receive from this ". The boarded individual behavior for the author says respect to the
individuality, to the proper form of each individual to visualize the reality, described as specific contexts. The position
changes are the forms to visualize diverse surrounding and the disturbances say respect to the effect of the environment
dynamism in the mind of the observing individual.
All the analyses observed in the KASTRUP (1999) definition, whose boarding becomes related with Cognitive
Psychology, that is a form to understand and to know the functioning of the cognition process. As well as this analysis,
others must be carried through to clarify its agreement.
WAPNER and WERNER (1957) In: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997) deal with the cognition as a process
development and higher level to mental process, which the perception is subordinated. For example: it can be perceived
the street where lives for being present physically there, however only through the cognitive organization of a set of
percipient experiences (frequent trips), that the itinerary for the work will be known.
In a neurophysiological boarding, BALLONE (2003) explains the cognition of the following form: "the
conception that is had of the reality is based on intra-psychic or subjective experience and, being this subjective
activity capable to attribute a highly personal nature to the perception of the world, then the perceived reality will
always elapse of the psychic state of the individual. Each conscience, in particular, integrates and totalizes in personal
and peculiar way its relationship with the world. Of this form, the facts offered for the world in its surroundings will
result in an individual representation only for each one, and will be this representation that will constitute the
particular reality of each individual. Therefore, the reality representation (more important that the proper reality) will
be so more complete, global and integrated how much bigger the conscience capacity that the person has of its life.
The global representation of the reality is understood as an act of conscience knowledge, and is this the cognition
concept ".
The psychologists differ the perception and the cognition, of such form that the perception is considered related
to the immediateness and depends on stimulus, and the cognition does not need immediate behavior and nor needs to
be directly related with the events of the next environment. The cognition is worried in HOW the people relate the
present with the past and HOW it will be able to project the future. The cognition encloses the sensation, the
perception, the formation of the mental image, the retention of the information, the reply, the reasoning, the solution of
problems, the formation of judgments and the values, or either, the decisions and the choice.
Well, considering the spatial subject, it can be said that the final result of the perception and the cognition is the
mental representation of the objective environment. Signals of information are filtered through the perception and later
filtered by cognitive structures in the brain, as suggested in Figure 2. The people do not project the lived real
environment directly, but the mental representation or image of it, and as resulted, the localization of the activities
human beings and the spatial standard of its movements will be the results of the percipient and cognitive framework
of this environment. Different people give to different interpretations of same spatial structures and phenomena,
which they possess, for each one, individual meanings.
sensory filter:
perception
information
the real world
cognition
environmental
messages
senses
brain
transformed
mental image
Figure 2: The formation of images.
Source: adapted of HAYES (1980) In: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997)
VITTE and GUERRA (2004) differentiate the processes of perception and cognition, mentioning that for
Psychology, "the perception is the act for which organize the sensations and recognizes exterior object; the cognition
recognizes, psychologically, as the set of mental processes in the thought, in the perception, in the recognition of
objects, of the things, of the symbolic organizations. Cognition is knowledge and is a process, that it is imbricate in the
problem of the explanation, in the search of the things reason". With these definitions and in function of the number of
involved variable in the processes, it can be said that the people carry through the spatial perception and cognition of
proper and individual forms. What it could consider is that people submitted to the same cultural experiences, of
education, social, religious, among others, or either, the variable of the processes are similar, they can form similar
mental images of the environment.
4
ACQUISITION OF THE SPATIAL KNOWLEDGE
With the seen concepts, it will be boarded as the human being acquires the spatial knowledge, which are the
spatial abilities, how the learning regarding the lived environment is produced, the nature and the theories of spatial
knowledge development.
4.1 Spatial Abilities
According to GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997), the definitions of spatial abilities are on to the performances
obtained in tests of spatial aptitudes, beyond the dimensions of contained visualization and orientation in these tests.
Many expanded definitions, that include the dimension of spatial relations, have been offered for some authors, as
SELF and GOLLEDGE (1994) In: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997), who suggests that the spatial abilities include
the following ones:
- the ability to think geometrically;
- the ability to imagine spatial relations complex as three-dimensional molecular structures;
- the ability to recognize spatial standards of phenomena in some scales;
- the ability to perceive three-dimensional structures in two dimensions and the relative ability to expand bidimensional structures in three-dimensional;
- among others.
The geographers study the spatial abilities so that they can answer to a variety of geographic questions, such as:
of identification (What, Where?), definition and meaning (What?), of description (What, Where?), of classification
(Which the group?), of analysis (Why?), of process (How?), temporal existence (When?) and theoretical or practical
relevance (Why?).
In the study of Geography, it exists diverse questions and innumerable spatial abilities that reflect the interactions
between the society, space and behavior. In the area of Psychology, according to GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997), a
discourse exists on the definition of the spatial abilities dimensions, which enclose the following ones:
- the first dimension is the spatial visualization, that consists of the ability of, mentally, to manipulate, to rotate,
to twist or to invert bi or three-dimensional visual stimulus;
- the second dimension is the spatial orientation, that consists of the ability to imagine as configurations of
elements can appear in different perspectives;
- the third dimension is the spatial relations, that are abilities that recognize spatial standards and distributions;
identification of forms; representation of layouts, localization connection, among others.
4.2 Theories of the Place Learning
GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997) affirm that one of the main interests in the based theories of the learning in
the theory of the cognition, for Geography, particularly, focus in the learning on the movement sequences or habits of
movement of the Man.
The theories of the learning of the place affirm that the organisms learn the localization of ways and places
instead of sequence of movements. These theories suggest that the learning is a cognitive process guided by spatial
relations instead of strengthened by sequences of movements. Given to a known origin and a destination, changeable
movements between the origin and the destination can be understood with the same results in terms of objectives. Soon,
clear implications exist that the localizations of places are learned, that possible connections are constructed between
these places in elapsing of the time, and that individuals develop the capacity to relate unknown destinations previously
to given origins, through reference to a general spatial project that incorporates proximity concepts, grouping or
separation, sequence and configuration or standards. TOLMAN (1948) In: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997) affirms
that the normal individuals develop mental maps that allow to sail in any given environment.
4.2.1
Theory of the Search and Learning
The behavior changes in elapsing of the time, leaving of a motivation for the discovery, evolving for the
complete activity of the learning. Obviously that this transition during a bigger or lesser time will depend on the type of
behavior, the behavior objective and the system limitations. In the process of learning acquisition, the individual gets
successive alternative answers in its experiences with the environment in a disordered way until reaching a certain level
of knowledge and from there a sequence of satisfactory answers emerges. Soon, it is assumed that an individual located
in an environment not familiar and stimulated by the search of a particular objective will show a trend to vary the
answers that are gotten in conditions of uncertainty until reaching the cited objective, considered correct or a more
satisfactory reply. And from this point, the experimentation diminishes and the incremental learning continues
(GOLLEDGE and STIMSON, 1997). A component essential of this theory is the search.
4.2.2
Theory of the Development of Piaget and Inhelder
The theories of development PIAGET and INHELDER (1967) In: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997) have
become a part important of literature on the environmental learning and acquisition of the spatial knowledge. The stages
of the development and the appropriate sequences in accordance with the theories of Piaget are shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Piaget´s theory of development of spatial schemata.
Source: HART and MOORE (1973) In: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997).
In the spatial context, Piaget sample that the representation of the space appears from the coordination and of the
internalization of action. In this viewpoint, spatial representations result to the manipulation and action in an external
environment instead the perceptual copy of this environment. Soon, the interaction with the space, e not the perception
of the space, it is basic in the block of construction of the spatial knowledge acquisition.
According to GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997), the geographer’s studies interest in the change of the diverse
geometries occurred in the spatial representation development. In the pre-representational stage, the theoretical concepts
appear of grouping, inclusion, exclusion and intercession. In the egocentric stage, the concepts of linearity and
monotonic sequence or ordinance appear, with the first slight knowledge of distance and direction. In the concreteoperational stage, relations of proximity are projected and structures of coordinates are understood, that must be
developed and be used. In the final stage of the development and above, the general and combined measure systems
must be more representative.
4.3 Acquiring the Spatial Knowledge
GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997) explain that in the process of spatial knowledge acquisition, a relevant
number of questions is raised. Most obvious and perhaps important it is the question on which are the environmental
characteristics (of objects or localizations) perceived in the learning of the environment, as it can be observed in Figure
4.
Size Visual Form Clarity Dominance Color Contour Architectural Design
Location Proximity to Others Cues Funcional Class Shape
Figure 4: The environmental characteristics perceived in environmental learning.
Source: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997).
These characteristics come from differentiated object attributes. For example, the route knowledge consists of a
procedural descriptions series involving a sequential register of the starting point, recognition of the intermediate point
of choice, directional election, identification and sequence of way segments, election in the trip way and choice of the
destination and recognition of the end point. The procedural level involves identification of places in ways or reference
points next to a segment to known route, where a decision is made relating to a continued navigation of a next segment
to the way. Obviously that in the detailed knowledge more of an individual on a route, the intermediate reference points
or the points of junction are registered and organized as nodes and orientated segments hierarchically, as it can be seen
in Figure 5.
.
Figure 5: The intermediate reference points or the junction points in route.
Source: GOLLEDGE (1976) In: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997).
5
METHODS OF EXTERNAL REPRESENTATION OF THE SPATIAL KNOWLEDGE
A cognitive map simply is not interiorized in the mind human being as a cartographic product. It has a
difference between its internal representation and the forms to represent it external. With this, GOLLEDGE (1975) In:
GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997) define the term cognitive map as the internal representation and the term
cognitive configuration as the exteriorization of the information harvested from the cognitive map. The cognitive
configuration can more be elaborated with more or less properties of conventional cartographic maps. Soon, for
example, the sketch map is considered primarily not-metric cognitive configurations and the multidimensional products
in scale are considered as metric cognitive configurations. LIBEN (1981) In: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997) had
considered the exteriorization of the cognitive information as the term spatial product. The methods to allow the
representation of cognitive configurations are varied depending on the carried through type of research. In this paper
will be explained two methods: one of the first methods, which are the sketch maps and the multidimensional methods.
5.1 Sketch Maps
The mapping of sketches has been considered one of the used instruments more for recovering of information
on environments. According to GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997), this technique works from assumptions that the
person understands the notion abstract of this model and that, through its relation for the real world, it has the motor
abilities enough to portray with precision in sketch format what it is perceiving of the environment, and considering that
some metric uniform is being applied in the sketched information.
The sketch map, that it possesses spatiality characteristics, of physical reality representation, tells the
interaction, the knowledge and geographic experience, beyond the spatial behavior. In this sketch, attribution of types of
individual proper representations can be observed. The mapping of sketches normally is used in set with other methods.
This method cannot supply trustworthy metric information, but it supplies useful information as the number of enclosed
features in the map, the raised set of point, linear and of area features, an indication of the dominant functions of the
raised place perceived for the individual that makes the test, e an ordinal information of the segments and curves of
sketch of routes. With the repetition of tests, this method becomes, in the last phases, trustworthier. An example had
been the applied repetitive tests in a boy of 12 years of age, that it sketched the itinerary of a not familiar environment
route, which was learned with the passage in this route during 5 days consecutive, in the two directions (5 gone and 5
returns), completing 10 tests. It can be observed that in the fifth test, the route is sketched with more details, as it can be
seen in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Sketch maps after multiple learning tests.
Source: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997).
In Figure 7, on the left, the sketch map of the Los Angeles city, U.S.A, can be visualized. The analysis of the
map concentrates on the observation of physical features (ways, edges, districts and reference points). In Figure 7, on
the right, a sketch map of Paris, France, is visualized and was drawn for a student of 25 years of age. In this study, on
social representations of the cities, individuals are enlisted to draw the map of Paris, in which they had that to think
about all the elements of the city that had come their minds. The places in the map are numbered in the order in which
they had been drawn. The student drew the first places that had been told in his studies.
Figure 7: On the left: a sketch map of Los Angeles city, EUA- Source: DORLING and FAIRBAIRN (1997) In:
SOINI (2001). On the right: a sketch map of Paris, France, drawn for a student of 25 years of age.
Source: MILGRAM (1984) In: SOINI (2001).
The Figure 8 shows sketch map used in research of ambient perception, the map on the right was drawn for
professors of the Federal University of São Carlos and on the left, for graduation pupils of this university. According to
MAROTI (2004), the research importance for the environment planning was salient in the proposal of UNESCO
(1973), that "one of the difficulties for the protection of natural environments is in the existence of differences in the
perceptions of the values and the importance of the same ones between the individuals of different cultures or socioeconomic groups that play distinct functions, in the social level, in these environments". Inside of this study proposal,
the term Ambient Perception was used in the ample meaning of "a taking of conscience of the environment for the
man". In this context, the percipient characterization of inter-actives socio-cultural groups with the Ecological Station of
Jataí, Brazil - region that was drawn in the sketch map - (researchers, land proprietors around, fishing, employees and
administrators of the Ecological Station), became integrant part of the interdisciplinary boarding for the evaluation of
the ecological, socio-economic and cultural values of the conservation area, in the perspective to guide proposals of the
use global planning of its natural resources, including biodiversity conservation strategies.
Figure 8: Sketch maps used in researches of ambient perception in Ecological Station of Jataí, Brazil.
Source: MAROTI (2004).
5.2 Multidimensional Methods
The multidimensional methods are considered efficient and of certain reliable degree in the direction to recover a
useful spatial cognitive information from structures of not-spatial knowledge. For example, some people possess the
easiness of remember of details essential in spatial environment pictures of considerable size and that are familiar. In
this in case that methods are developed to compare the information recovered with some representations of the objective
reality, as cartographic documents or other representations, to verify which it was the degree of distortion in relation to
the reality and later to diagnosis spatial individual (GOLLEDGE and STIMSON, 1997). In Figure 9, it can be observed
two drawings carried through for different individuals, where these had located some reference points previously
defined in a model called axial biases. With this result, it can be compared these drawings with cartographic maps, for
example, e to verify the differences and the trends of the committed errors. The comparison can be made also between
the individuals.
Figure 9: The typical axial biases.
Source: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997).
In Figure 10 the road sketches drawn by two distinct individuals are shown. The representations to the left had
been constructed from a warping of the correct representation of the ways in relation to that it was drawn by the
individuals. The result demonstrates a correspondence between the objective and subjective configurations and allows
that some individuals are grouped in accordance with the similarity of the distortions. The results also had allowed to
perceive that some individuals have the trend exaggerated for short ways.
Figure 10: The correct representations of distorted ways (on the left) and ways sketches (on the right).
Source: GOLLEDGE and STIMSON (1997).
6
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Soon, it can be considered that the spatial perception and cognition possess psychological stages to be exceeded
for the acquisition of the spatial knowledge. The way that these stages will be carried through will be particular of each
human being, dependent of HOW the factors linked to this space influences the opinion and the way to think and to
visualize the geographic space.
It is concluded, then, that despite the difficulty of elect cartographic representations as use standards, it
understands that with the study, analysis and, mainly, the discovery of the form of HOW one determined group of
people visualizes the environment, it will become more practical and less subjective the representation rules
construction for confection of maps, which will be elected as standard for this group. With this, it will have little
disagreements in the use of cartographic standards.
This type of analysis and generation of cartographic representation of one determined group can be enriched
when the studies of cases carried through in the fields of the knowledge Geography and Ambient Psychology assist and
help to evidence that it exists to such similarity in the mental representations of groups submitted to the next
experiences. Piaget, with its Theory of the Development, defined how processes the evolution of the spatial knowledge
in the diverse stages of the human being life. This study helps to understand definitive answers in certain groups of
individuals. The importance of the agreement of the human answers to the spatial stimulus is important in the studies of
Behavioral Geography and Cognitive Psychology. These answers can be mapped through the existing methods of
externalization of the spatial knowledge. Some methods, as the multidimensional ones allow, of trustworthy form, to get
results of behavior type through the found space distortions.
To illustrate, the SOINI (2001) communication will be cited, in which he declares "that always that the space is
observed, one of the forms to represent its perception is through maps, that can be in the level concrete or the abstract
level. Traditionally, the maps are considered as reality abstractions, with the objective to provide with information to
the users on the environment". According to DORLING & FAIRBAIRN (1997) In: SOINI (2001), the maps, nowadays,
are each time more thought as products of the reflex of the cartographer viewpoints, that in this case they are in function
of observers and percipients of the geographic space, e in a more general case, it can be any inserted individual in this
space.
7
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
BALLONE, G.J. Sensopercepção. PsiqWeb - last revision in 2003. Available in Internet: [captured in 11/20/2004].
CHRISTOFOLETTI, Antonio. Modelagem de Sistemas Ambientais. São Paulo: Editora Edgard Blücher. 2002.
GOLLEDGE, R. G., STIMSON, R. J.. Spatial Behavior: A Geographic Perspective. Editora Guilford Press, ISBN:
1572300507. 1997.
GUIA-HEU.
Guia
de
Referência
sobre
Sistema
Límbico.
Available
in
Internet:
http://www.guia.heu.nom.br/hipocampo.htm [captured in 11/20/2004].
HOGG, M., VAUGHAN. Social Psychology: An Introduction. Editora Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1995.
KASTRUP, Virgínia. A Invenção de Si e do Mundo: Uma Introdução do Tempo e do Coletivo no Estudo da
Cognição. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1999.
MAROTI, P. S. Trabalho realizado pela Universidade Federal de São Carlos na Estação Ecológica de Jataí. Avalilable
in Internet: http://www.lapa.ufscar.br/portugues/perc_amb.htm [captured in 11/20/2004].
SOINI, Katriina. Exploring Human Dimensions of Multifunctional Landscapes through Mapping and MapMaking. Jokioinen, Finland: MTT Agrifood Research Finland - Elsevier Science. 2001.
VITTE, A. C., GUERRA, J.T.Reflexões sobre a Geografia Física no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Editora Bertrand,
2004.
8
BIOGRAPHY
Name: Linda Soraya Issmael
Birth date: 10/ 26/ 1970 - Nativeness: Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Nationality: Brazilian
Position: Cartographic Engineer
Academical Professor
Captain of Engineers Corps of Brazilian Army
PROFESSIONAL FORMATION
Coursing Doctorate in Sciences in Geography - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – beginning: 2004
Officer Improvement Course - Officer Improvement School of Army - 2004
Master of Cartographic Engineering – Cartography Generalization - Military Institute of Engineering - 2003
Official of Engineer Corps - Military Institute of Engineering – 1997
Curse of Specialization in Analyze, Project and System Management - latus sensus under-graduation – Pontifical
University Catholic - 1996
Cartographic Engineer – State University of Rio de Janeiro – 1993.
PUBLISHED PAPERS
12 (twelve) papers published in Congress, Seminars and several participations.
DIDACTIC ACTIVITIES
- Professor of the Military Institute of Engineering: graduation and undergraduation in Cartographic Engineering: from
2003 to nowadays;
- Professor of State University of Rio de Janeiro: graduation in Cartographic Engineering : 2002.
RESEARCH LINES
Digital Cartography; GIS; Historical Cartography; Thematic Cartography; Cartographic Generalization; Spatial
Perception and Cognition.
PARTICIPATION IN CONGRESS, SEMINARS
- Participation in 24 (twenty four) several events.
ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS
- Engineer – Geographical Army Service.
Military Institute of Engineering
- Coordinator of Graduation Course of Cartographic Engineering; Coordinator Administrative Course of Cartographic
Engineering.
5ª Division of Surveying – Geographical Service Directory
- Boss of Cartographic Edition Section; boss of Off-Set Printing Section; boss of Revision Cartographic Section; boss of
Surveying Section.
PRIZES AND DISTINCTIONS
- Military medal of Bronze; Medal of the Cartographic Merit.