認知地図の生成を促進する地図表記方法の実証的検討

抄録

A hazard map provides vital safety information such as predicted areas of hazards, evacuation routes, and emergency shelters. It is desirable for residents to retain such safety information in their own memory (i.e., cognitive map) because it is unlikely that they always have immediate access to a hazard map, printed or electronic. This study investigated the effect of using familiar icons as landmarks on cognitive mapping. Participants read a fictitious map with 10 intersections for 1 minute and 5 minutes later they were asked to sketch the map. Experiment 1 examined the effects of the type and the number of landmarks and found that familiar icons were more effective than black dots but that such superiority disappeared when the number of landmarks increased from 10 to 15. Experiment 2 showed that the effect of using familiar icons extended to the area of the map with no landmarks. Experiment 3 indicated that the use of familiar icons was not sufficient to promote an orientation-free cognitive map. Further research is needed to determine whether the optimal number of landmarks is relative to the complexity of a map or essentially fixed due to the limited capacity of human information processing.