| Summary: |
When people make decisions about movement or another action in physical space, such decisions are based on mental images not just of the consequences of actions, but of space itself. The interdisciplinary field of "mental" or "cognitive" maps has a long history: research on how children develop concepts of geographic-scale space began some 90 years ago, and on spatial behavior itself before the middle of the last century. Recent studies suggest that spatial learning may begin very early, long before children enter school, but that adult cognition of geographic space is very distorted: as the title of a recent talk suggests, "Mexico is (mentally) in South America and the Rio Grande is 1,400 miles wide."
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