Mental Maps

Considering citizens' perceptions of their living environment is very helpful in making the right decisions for city planners who intend to build a sustainable society. Mental map analyses are widely used in understanding the level of perception of individuals regarding the surrounding environment. The present study introduces Aram Mental Map Analyzer (AMMA), an open-source program, which allows researchers to use special features and new analytical methods to receive outputs in numerical data and analytical maps with greater accuracy and speed. AMMA performance is contingent upon two principles of accuracy and complexity, the accuracy of the program is measured by Accuracy Placed Landmarks (APL) and General Orientation (GO), which respectively analyses the landmark placement accuracy and the main route mapping accuracy. Also, the complexity section is examined through two analyses Cell Percentage (CP) and General Structure (GS), which calculates the complexity of citizens' perception of space based on the criteria derived from previous studies. AMMA examines all the dimensions and features of the graphic maps and its outputs have a wide range of valid and differentiated information, which is tailored to the research and information subject matter that is required.

Public transport subsidies play an important role in the present Belgian mobility policy. The introduction of ''free'' bus transport in Hasselt in 1997 was an important event. Later, the Flemish government in cooperation with the regional public transport company elaborated the so-called ''third-payer system'' for target groups. The price of public transport is not paid by the user or the provider, but partly or completely by a ''third party''. In how far these measures contribute to a more sustainable mobility system has caused much debate.

This article serves as introduction to a special double issue of the journal, comprised of seven articles that center on the theme of space and place in the ancient world. The essays examine the ways in which borders, frontiers, and the lands beyond them were created, defined, and maintained in the ancient world. They question the intersection of concrete and fantastical, or real and imagined, that existed in both the ancient and pre-modern world, where distant locations become elaborately embroidered by fantastical constructions, despite the concrete connections of travel, trade, and even military enterprise.

** Note this is a pre-print version of the article **

National loss of territory is commonly described in corporeal language of mutilation and dismemberment. In this paper I argue that this language is not simply poetic or metaphoric but that it reflects a genuine association between the individual body and the national contours, and that this identification has been greatly facilitated by the emergence of the national map. In revisiting the common trope of the nation-as-body through inclusion of insights from neuroscience, I explore what happens when a lack of fit intervenes between the physical geographical extent of the nation and the mental map held by its inhabitants. Taking Manchuria as my main focus while suggesting a much wider applicability, I suggest that ‘lost’ territories, no longer included within the national body, remain nonetheless part of a previous national incarnation. As such, they draw national sentiments and affect, eliciting what can be labeled ‘phantom pains’.

El artículo explora la relevancia de las experiencias y representaciones de los lugares, así como el sentido de lugar, para comprender los procesos migratorios y la toma de decisiones de los inmigrantes mexicanos en Albuquerque (Nuevo México). Metodológicamente, el artículo se centra en el análisis de los mapas mentales y de los discursos espaciales de los entrevistados. Resalta que los sentidos de lugar más arraigados se encuentran a nivel micro, de tal forma que algunos espacios públicos se identifican con cambios sustanciales en las vidas de los inmigrantes. No obstante, las representaciones de México y los Estados Unidos son de tal intensidad que permiten entender trayectorias migratorias pasadas y futuras.

In this paper we summarize five experiments that were designed to investigate how tactile maps contribute to the cognitive maps of people with visual impairments. In two experiments we demonstrated that tactile maps can contribute to peoples' ability to learn a route through an unfamiliar area. From the results of two further studies, we argue that compared to people with sight, people with visual impairments have greater difficulty encoding information from a map. We considered this directly in a fifth experiment by investigating how people with visual impairments search and learn a map. We found that they used less efficient strategies than people with sight. We conclude that tactile maps are an important source of geographical information when people need to learn about new environments, but we also point out that to benefit most from tactile maps people need to encode the map information as effectively as possible. As people with visual impairments do not always use the most appropriate encoding strategies we suggest that tactile map users might benefit from greater experience and training in map encoding strategies.

Sketch mapping has been an important data collection technique for geographers since the 1960s. Structured sketch mapping requires participants to draw spatial data onto a base map containing cartographic information, in order to assist with spatial referencing. A concern that base map characteristics may influence sketch map content has been raised repeatedly in the research literature. However little scholarly attention has been paid to systematically testing the effect of base maps.

This paper aims to test the effects of base map size and imagery on structured sketch maps of avoidance behaviour in university students. Using an experimental design, 272 sketch maps were compared for differences in: sketch map style; the location of collective avoidance hotspots; the extent of the reported area avoided; the number of reported areas avoided; the intensity of avoidance; and the tortuosity of sketch map features.

No significant differences were found between base maps in sketch map style or the size, intensity or number of areas avoided. Provision of larger base maps caused respondents to draw more detailed sketch maps. Collective avoidance hotspots shifted location slightly between base maps, probably due to difficulties interpreting aerial photographs.

Sketch map content appears to be remarkably robust to changes in base map. Base maps appear to assist respondents with spatial referencing rather than cueing respondents to report specific features.

This paper analyzes and compares two mental mapping studies – one with young people (aged 16–19) in Finland and one with Finnish and Russian young people (aged 9–15) in the Finnish-Russian borderland. These studies show that mental mapping is a valuable method which can illuminate crucial aspects of how borders and bordering are related to young people’s territorial identifications. We argue that it is important to pay special attention to the research methodology, including the mapping scale and the complementary data collection methods, as these determine what aspects of borders and bordering in young people’s territorial identifications can be discovered, and how profoundly identification processes can be studied with mental maps. This paper contributes to the theoretical discussion on borders and territorial identity by visualizing the complexity of how borders and territorial identifications are intertwined, and how young people engage in the social, cultural and mental construction of borders and the negotiation of territorial identities. The paper enriches the mental mapping methodology by demonstrating two different ways mental maps can be used for studying young people’s territorial identifications.

"Drawing on case study evidence from three deprived urban neighbourhoods in England, this paper explores the influence of social networks and attachment to place on young people’s access to training and employment opportunities. The findings presented contribute to the emerging literature which highlights the importance that place-based social networks have in facilitating young people’s access to training and employment opportunities through provision of trusted information, references and role models. Moreover, the evidence also demonstrates how both social networks and attachment to place may constrain geographical and social horizons, and therefore limit the available opportunities in employment and training that young people perceive are open to them. The paper concludes by focusing on policy implications. In particular, it is argued that it is important that the influence of social networks, place attachment and associated subjective geographies is recognised by academics and policy-makers seeking a better understanding of the attitudes and perceptions of young people towards training and employment—especially in deprived areas.

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I would like to express my gratitude to the organisers for their kind invitation. Furthermore, I would like to thank the Stiftung Alfried Krupp Kolleg, Greifswald, which generously funded the underlying research on migration narratives in early modern thought, and the Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft (project MOEL-415), whose support enabled me to explore the life and writings of Friedrich Menius.

A common consequence of sticking to a research topic for a fair amount of time is that it starts colonising your everyday life to a point where you may find yourself asking questions to every new acquaintance as if they were participants in your project. Your friends may become tired of your constant interrogations, but unknown people might simply take you as someone with a peculiar sense of curiosity. I believe this is what recently happened to me when coming back from a conference and decided to call an Uber driver at Lisbon airport. The driver who picked me up quickly noticed my Brazilian accent (my accent from São Paulo, to be more precise) and told me we were compatriots. He was also from São Paulo and had come to Lisbon some 6 months before that ride. Because we were both Brazilians, he said, he felt comfortable to tell me certain things, like the fact that he did not have a legal immigration status at the time. He then told me how difficult it was for him to get a Portuguese fiscal number: 'You cannot simply go to any random Finanças (the tax office); some of the offices ask you to bring two Portuguese persons to testify you live here; some do not accept an informal rent contract as proof of address; I don't have a contract and I don't know anyone here. At some Finanças offices, they don't require any of that. You see, you really have to know where to go; they (tax offices) are not all alike'. And he went on telling me (I might have asked a couple of questions in that direction) about registering at the local health centre, choosing a neighbourhood for him

In the context of the French estuary of the Seine River (Normandy), around the urban area of Le Havre, this paper studies the determinants of industrial risk perception of the resident population. More precisely, to what extent the presence of components in the industrial landscape may influence this risk perception. Several complementary methods were combined to evaluate risk perception, assess surrounding landscapes or measure the distance to landscape components. Qualitative, quantitative, and spatial data were collected, pooled and treated in a geographic information system in order to arrive at two main results. First, risk sensitivity depends on various factors including the landscape dimension and the visibility of industrial components. Second, mental maps drawn by people allow a better understanding of industrial risk sensitivity; it appears that areas of risk are more precisely delineated by people who are less worried about risk.

In order to capture how young people in northern Cyprus see the Cyprus Question, we asked more than 300 students to ‘draw Cyprus’ and surveyed their political
attitudes, as well as their identities and preferences for the future of the island. The results show that the Turkish Cypriot students, in comparison with the students
from Turkey and from the other countries, are more supportive of a decentralized federative structure, identify themselves with the Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot
identities, and more willing to embrace a consociational approach to the Cyprus Question.

Foreign investment is of particularly importance in countries undergoing far-reaching economic transformation. Also the location of foreign investment throughout the country is very important for further regional development. Actual location decisions of investors are influenced by ...

The aim of this paper is to present the three steps method of using cognitive temporal (CT) maps as a support to an individual's participation in the planning process. The term cognitive temporal maps refers to the process of drawing and comparing maps of past, present and future desired environments as an approach to assist the planning process. The three steps method which includes in-depth interviews, drawing CT maps, and a dialogue between the researcher/planner and the interviewee/resident is presented as a method which helps to expose the local spatial knowledge necessary for effective planning.

Why Alice is not in Wonderland? Countering the militarized status quo of Cyprus is a narrative, part of the author's diary. It is a reflection on a critical spatial practice, a performative event, titled "Alice in Meridianland… or the counter-militarization action", part of the Buffer Fringe Performance Festival, Nicosia, Cyprus, 2019. The critical spatial practice comments on Cyprus' actual militarization status by offering alternative urban imaginaries for the urban commons of an island without armies. It has taken place along a loop of streets and public spaces both in the north and the south parts of divided Nicosia. "Alice in Meridianland" is a camouflage tactic to conceal its anti-militaristic nature while crossing the guarded checkpoints into the city's north part. Two tricycles, pulling 3-meter-long banners, have followed the loop in opposite directions, three times. They met at designated areas and formed instant spaces of playful interaction. The narrative unpacks the entanglements between the performative event and the city's users of the streets and public spaces. It unfolds how the event has generated new associations between the public spaces and the feelings of the participants and of the author. How it readjusted their mental maps and urban imaginaries. The narrative is a reflective tool for critical spatial practices in producing situated knowledge.

Researchers dealing with environmental perception have to be conscious about the different approaches, methodological proceedings and the interdisciplinary nature of their topic. Since the studies about perception cope with the subjectiveness of vision and all the other senses including their values, attitudes and preferences created by individuals and groups, it is necessary to develop specific strategies to make visible these thoughts, opinions and sentiments towards perceived realities and imagined world visions. Maps as simbolized representations of reality can be a starting point for research. In this coherence, Cartography must be understood in its broadest sense, beyond the normative model of scientific Cartography with its rules of precision and geometry, comprehending the map not as a product, but as a means of communication and a process (mapping) that turns environmental experience shareable. Two different strategies are presented and illustrated by some practical examples in order to approach the maps to environmental perception: the confection, discussion and interpretation of mental maps in different scales and the use of official maps as biographies in order to sharpen perception and stimulate memory. These mappings point out human imagination and can contribute to a broader methodological discussion in the field of environmental perception.
Key-words: Environmental perception, representations, maps, mappings, mental maps, humanistic approach.

Interest in the well-known so-called oldest medieval map of Rome, a drawing in the Chronologia Magna di Paolino Minorita executed in the first half of the fourteenth century, has until now focused mainly on its representation of the historical city itself. This article seeks instead to draw attention to the codicological and theoretical context of the map, i.e. the historical interest of its commissioner in the chronological and topographical order of history. The author, Paolino Minorita, explains in his prologues the values of the “grata pictura” (a compilation of data in chronological order that allows an overview) and the “mapa duplex”, which comprises visual and verbal signs. Seen from this perspective, the map becomes an epistemological instrument of the historiographer and helps us to understand why the first (at least the first known) medieval map of Rome was drawn in this context.

The paper deals with the issue of perception and delimitation of Central Europe (CE). The first part discusses basic concepts and conceptions of CE, which are crucial in this respect. Attention is then paid to differences in the perception of CE by individual nations and their reasons. The following empirical part of the study compares theoretical knowledge with conclusions from the research. This research was carried out through a questionnaire survey collecting mental maps of selected individuals. The respondents were senior high school students and first year university students from eight CE countries. Their task was to mark the boundaries of CE based on their subjective perception on a map of Europe. A total of 490 mental maps were received, analysed and aggregated to GIS map outputs. The final part compares and interprets the results and reflects on how and why the results differ in individual countries and to which extent they match hypothetical assumptions of ‘national’ perceptions of CE.

• Lena Scheen writes a lucid and compelling account of literature written amidst Shanghai’s sweeping transformations from 1990-2010. She evokes lived experiences of the city via literary and cultural analysis informed by field research on influential authors, their texts and their public reception. Shanghai Literary Imaginings is essential reading on turn-of-the-millennium Shanghai literary culture.  -- Robin Visser, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Shanghai Literary Imaginings offers significant new insights into contemporary Chinese urban culture from a highly innovative methodological perspective. Its truly interdisciplinary approach makes Shanghai Literary Imaginings stand out from other books that comment on contemporary Chinese city life. -- Michel Hockx, SOAS, University of London
• Shanghai Literary Imaginings is an admirable feat of organization, analysis, translation, and interpretation, bringing to light a large body of work that would otherwise lie buried, at least in the western world of Chinese studies. -- Andrew David Field, Duke Kunshan University

Artykuł odnosi się do założeń badawczych, w których pierwszoplanową rolę odgrywa źródło danych (zapis autobiograficzny), sposób posługiwania się kategoriami opisowymi (elastyczność, uwrażliwianie, pomostowość) oraz metoda porządkowania poszczególnych wymiarów zapisu autobiograficznego (mapowanie). Rozważania podzielone są na kilka części, z których najważniejsze dotyczą uwrażliwiającego charakteru kategorii doświadczenia codziennego i naukowego opisu, a także relacji między światem przeżywanym (life-world, Lebenswelt) osób z niepełnosprawnościami i metodą mapowania działań ich uspołecznionych ciał. Z jednej strony, zakorzenienie w etyce procedur badawczych ma uwolnić badacza od zamykających formalnych kategorii. Z drugiej, naukowe opisy, wykorzystując dynamiczne mapowanie milieu osób z niepełnosprawnościami zamiast usztywniające „kalki” specjalistycznych dyskursów, umożliwiają pełniejsze rozumienie świata przeżywanego tych osób.

La investigación que acá se reseña puso a prueba los mapas mentales en grupos de estudiantes. Metodológicamente se apeló a un diseño cuasi-experimental intragrupos, con el ánimo de establecer si con el uso de mapas mentales los sujetos de investigación mejoraban
o no su nivel de originalidad y eficacia con respecto a ideas que se derivaran de procesos creativos que no utilizaran la cartografía mental. Los investigadores obtuvieron un total de 64 ideas, 32 resultantes del uso de mapas mentales y otras 32 provenientes de procesos
que no involucraron al mapa mental. Para hacer los comparativos del caso se apeló a evaluaciones cualificadas de la originalidad y la eficacia mediante la utilización de un diferencial semántico que permitió valorar estadísticamente los puntajes dados a cada una de las ideas realizadas por los sujetos de investigación. La hipótesis que se planteó en el
sentido de que los mapas mentales mejoran la originalidad de los estudiantes se confirmó, más no otra hipótesis que sugería que con los mapas mentales se incrementaba el nivel de eficacia de las propuestas. No obstante, dependiendo del tipo de mapa mental utilizado, la
eficacia puede no verse disminuida, en tanto que la originalidad se incrementa, con toda seguridad, independientemente del tipo de mapa mental utilizado en el proceso. El mapa mental, debidamente utilizado, potencializa en los estudiantes el pensamiento divergente, la flexibilidad espontanea, las jerarquías planas y, en general, su creatividad.

In this paper I evaluate embodied social cognition, embodied cognition’s account of how we understand others. I identify and evaluate three claims that motivate embodied social cognition. These claims are not specific to social cognition; they are general hypotheses about cognition. As such, they may be used in more general arguments for embodied cognition. I argue that we have good reasons to reject these claims. Thus, the case for embodied social cognition fails. Moreover, to the extent that general arguments for embodied cognition rest on these premises, such arguments are correspondingly uncompelling.

CyGaMEs, which stands for Cyberlearning through Game-based, Metaphor Enhanced Learning Objects, is a formal approach to the design of instructional learning environments through applied structure mapping theory. This paper summarizes the CyGaMEs research program: its origin; the CyGaMEs approach to design, development, and assessment; the experimental paradigm; and findings using Cy-GaMEs' online, single-player research environment, Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME.

Il-Ḵh̲ānid Tabrīz became not only a nodal point in the spatial imagination of Christian merchants and missionaries, but was promoted even to a significant landmark in the Biblical and apocalyptic topography of 13th and 14th century Christianity. As this processes were very much connected to the rise of the city as centre of Mongol Iran, its prominence on the (mental) maps dwindled with its political and mercantile importance; yet, the case of Tabrīz provides a most interesting example for the imagination and organisation of space respectively the modification and adaption of these phenomena within the Christian communities confronted with the rise and fall of Mongol power in Iran.

Geographic mental maps have been called on numerous times in explaining foreign policy decisions. However, mental maps lack a serious conceptualising endeavour in order to be useful to scientific inquiry. Before we can use mental maps to understand and compare foreign policy making processes we must define mental maps and frame them in their wider intellectual context. In this paper we develop geographic mental maps as an analytical concept and assess their conceptual “goodness” so they can contribute to enriching the scope of the foreign policy analysis toolbox

Maps were the coincidental locus of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II's most passionate interests: war and art. So far, the focus has been upon the famed conqueror (Fâtih) of Constantinople's interest in, and demand for, European maps without mention of his patronage of classical Islamic cartographic material. In this article, I expand the perspective on Mehmet's cartographical milieu by inserting into the historical picture consideration of a recension of cartographically illustrated manuscripts, those of al-Istakhri's Kitab al-Masalik wa-al-Mamalik [Book of Roads and Kingdoms], dating from 1474 onwards and made in post-conquest Ottoman Constantinople. I also set out the circumstances under which this ‘cluster’ of manuscripts may have been copied and, by focusing on the world maps in particular, suggest ways in which the maps can be interpreted as cultural artefacts. I conclude by indicating how this particular group of manuscripts provides insights into map audience, patronage and propaganda in fifteenth-century Anatolia.

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a number of works relating geographic mental maps to international politics. Notwithstanding the various efforts to clarify and explain the conceptual framework underlying the geographic mental map research agenda, much theoretical bewilderment still persists. The concept of the geographic mental map has diverged considerably in definition and numerous methodological approaches have been undertaken. Consequently, no scholarly consensus has yet been reached. “Mental map” is still used as a catch-all term with only very vague notions as to its conceptual underpinnings. Several fundamental issues still need to be addressed. First and foremost, geographic mental maps are in need of a serious effort of conceptualization in order to be properly applied to the study of international politics. In particular, the question of how foreign policy decision-makers geographic mental maps are formed has to date eluded a satisfactory response. With this in mind, this article shall consider some of the many ways individuals can acquire geographic knowledge from their political environment. For this purpose we draw from the vast theoretical and empirical literature that has emerged primarily from the fields of environmental psychology and behavioral geography. Despite the inherent limitations of adapting this knowledge to the field of foreign policy analysis, this literature is highly suggestive given that it serves as an important source of insight and hypotheses for those concerned with the understanding of foreign policy-makers geographic constructs.

In northwestern Siberia, rivers historically played an essential
role in structuring economic, cultural, and administrative
space. The rivers’ role in spatial perception is reflected in vocabulary
of some local languages. With the recent development of roads
and railroads, a new way has emerged to structure socioeconomic
and political space. The two systems of spatial structuring contradict
each other, and their relative importance for different local groups
depends on their professional and ethnocultural affiliation. This
leads to different perceptions of space, distances, and geographic
directions by the members of these groups. Furthermore, since the
administrative borders reflect the “river” system, but the administrative
power is increasingly projected along the roads and railroads,
the conflict between the two systems has a political dimension.

The paper presents the results of a questionnaire in perceptual dialectology conducted in 2017 among the students of the University of Szczecin. To the best of my knowledge, it is one of the very few works discussing the laymen’s perception of dialectal variation in Poland. The author encourages Polish dialectologists to approach the results not merely as an oddity but also as a challenge to deepen the discussion and explain the linguistic background of the results.

The paper reviews and complements existing knowledge about the acquisition of proper names. On the basis of research into children's language, it seems obvious today that the process of acquisition of proper names (anthroponyms) is simultaneous to the acquisition of common nouns. However, the underlying mechanisms explaining the separation of the two groups of nouns are controversial. Compared to the case of anthroponyms, learning toponyms is a more complicated and a longer-lasting process. In connection with this topic, researchers dealing with spatial cognition are focusing on spatial orientation, on the localisation of spatial information in the brain and on spatial language. They study neither the way children get to know the wider geographical environment, nor the way they acquire toponyms. The author seeks to obtain more information about the beginning of this process based on the study of two small children's toponymic knowledge in connection with their acquisition of geographical common nouns and the development of spatial orientation. This makes it possible to draw preliminary conclusions about the specificity of the cognitive mechanisms ensuring the knowledge of geographical environment. The author suggests that the meaning of early toponyms is typically under-generalised — children tend to interpret the names of cities/towns or streets by restricting them to a certain house. It has also been made evident that, at the age of 2–4 years, the relationship between places and persons is very tight (for instance, children connect the names of places to specific persons). The semantic contingencies can be explained by the fact that, in the case of children, the place concepts themselves (what is a city/town?, what is a street?, etc.) have not been fully constructed yet, and that the elements of space are still not distinct entities.

Вопросы ономастики. 2016. Т. 13. № 2. С. 7–22

In recent years geographic mental maps have made a comeback into the spotlight of scholarly inquiry in the area of International Relations (IR), particularly Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA).
The book is framed within the mental map research agenda. It seeks to contribute and expand the theoretical and empirical development and application of geographic mental maps as an analytical concept for international politics. More precisely, it presents a theoretical framework for understanding how mental maps are employed in foreign policy decision-making and highlights the mechanisms involved in their transformation.
The theoretical framework presented in this book employs the latest conceptual and theoretical insight from numerous other scientific fields such as social psychology and organizational theory.
In order to test the theoretical propositions outlined in the initial chapters, the book assesses how the Carter Administration’s changing mental maps impacted its Middle East policy. In other words, the book applies geographic mental maps as an analytical tool to explain the development of the Carter Doctrine.
The book is particularly targeted at academics, students, and professionals involved in the fields of Human Geography, IR, Political Geography, and FPA.

Hungarian onomastic research has always been open to other areas of linguistics, as well as to ways of thinking and results of related study fields. The psychological viewpoint already appeared in studies in the 1940s. However, as a general theoretical framework, the cognitive approach appeared in Hungarian onomastics only as late as the early 21st century. Nevertheless, over this short period of time it has been applied successfully in numerous fields of onomastic research. In my paper I review how the cognitive approach is used in Hungarian onomastic research and consider the results of applying the cognitive view: with connection the problem of grammatical categorisation of word-classes and meaning; the typology of toponyms; the metonymical name-giving and metonymical name usage; the relation between the mental map and toponyms; the functionalist typology of toponyms.

La recherche onomastique hongroise a toujours été ouverte aux autres domaines de la linguistique, de même qu’aux méthodologies et résultats des champs d’études connexes. Le point de vue psychologique est déjà apparu dans nos études dans les années 1940. Toutefois, en tant que cadre théorique général, l’approche cognitive n’est pas apparue dans l’onomastique hongroise avant le début des années 2000. Nonobstant, pendant ce court laps de temps, elle a été appliquée avec succès dans de nombreux champs de la recherche onomastique. Dans cet article, j’étudie comment l’approche cognitive est employée dans la recherche onomastique hongroise et ses résultats : en relation avec la question de la catégorisation grammaticale des classes de mots et du sémantisme ; la typologie des toponymes ; la nomination métonymique et l’emploi des noms métonymiques ; la relation entre carte mentale et toponymes ; la typologie fonctionnaliste des toponymes.

Die ungarische Namenforschung ist stets offen für andere Bereiche der Sprachwissenschaft gewesen, wie auch für die Denkweisen und Ergebnisse benachbarter Disziplinen. Der psychologische Standpunkt war bereits in Studien der 1940er Jahre aufgetaucht; doch als allgemeines theoretisches Gerüst erschien der kognitive Ansatz als erst zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts. Trotzdem ist er seither in dieser kurzen Zeit auf zahlreichen Gebieten der Onomastik erfolgreich angewandt worden. In meinem Beitrag gebe ich einen Überblick über die Arten der Verwendung dieses kognitiven Ansatzes in der ungarischen Namenforschung und untersuche die Ergebnisse der kognitiven Sichtweise: in Zusammenhang mit der Frage der Kategorisierung von Wortklassen und ihrer Semantik sowie der Typologie der Ortsnamen; in Bezug auf die metonymische Namengebung und den metonymischen Namengebrauch; auf das Verhältnis zwischen kognitiver Landkarte und Ortsnamen; sowie schließlich auf die funktionalistische Typologie der Toponyme.

Onoma 47. (2012): 367–379.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are an essential tool for analyzing and representing spatial information.  The integration of GIS with qualitative research techniques can create new ways to incorporate and represent data with multiple meanings and to support the efforts of citizen stakeholders in producing urban change. This project used map-based surveys to collect data and insights from community members in several neighborhoods within Muncie, Indiana, and to introduce students to a different way of using GIS. These methods allowed residents to participate in the development of data and GIS-based visualizations of the conditions of their own neighborhoods while also introducing students to new possibilities for the use of qualitative data with GIS.

This interview with Dr. Robert T. Tally Jr. (associate professor of English at Texas State University) aims to highlight the strong interrelation between literature and space from the starting point of Geocriticism. With this term, which was coined to define a new discipline able to interact with “literary studies, geography, urbanism and architecture” (Tally 2011: xiv), in fact, Tally offers a theoretical basis for spatiality in relation to literature.

Desde un enfoque constructivista del espacio urbano como producto social, en el presente artículo presentamos algunos aspectos teóricos y metodológicos para el análisis de las representaciones geosociales y la identidad urbana para luego investigar a partir de una selección de mapas mentales la imagen espacial que los hablantes expresan a través de las variedades lingüísticas que distinguen, estilizan y ubican en su cartografía mental de la ciudad. Se trata de un primer acercamiento a un corpus recopilado en 2013, que permite observar, por un lado, que la percepción del espacio urbano está basada en la fuerte identificación de los porteños con los barrios de la ciudad y, por otro lado, que existe en el imaginario colectivo una dicotomía norte-sur estilizada que se refleja tanto en lo social, lo espacial y lo lingüístico.

In this article we present some theoretical and methodological reflections for the analysis of geosocial representations and urban identity from a constructivist approach, understanding the urban space as a social product. Based on a selection of mental maps compiled in Buenos Aires in 2013, we will investigate the spatial image that the inhabitants of this city express through linguistic varieties they single out, stylize and situate in their mental cartography. This analysis shows, first, that the perception of the urban space of the porteños is based on strong identification with their neighbourhood, and second, that in the collective imaginary there is a distinctive dichotomy between north and south that is reflected in the social, the spatial as well as in the linguistic.

La nuit récréative étudiée dans la commune de Villeurbanne permet de recenser la richesse des mobilités, des lieux de rassemblements, des acteurs et des objets de l’espace urbain. A partir des espaces actifs révélés par des cartes mentales des parcours et des lieux de récréation nocturne, une autre manière de concevoir l’espace urbain devient explicite : fluctuant, polarisé, rythmé et peuplé densément et diversement d’humains et de non-humains. Peu à peu, dans la nuit et hors la nuit, se laisse figurer un espace-temps urbain composite, une « contre-ville ».

Perception and expectation of citizens is an important factor in urban planning, settlement and management. Hence, there is a need of a participatory citizen centric planning of urban settlement based on spatial data. These perception and expectation may be represented in terms of emotions. Determining Urban Emotions is an approach which can be used to map different types of emotions associated with urbanization. In the recent years, some new methods have been presented for the area of urban and spatial planning, resulting in a fundamental change of the understanding of urban planning. Geographical information system acts as a key factor for analyzing urban emotions from various types of data. This paper presents the review of ongoing research on various techniques for determining urban emotions in the recent years.

Being completely lost in an unfamiliar environment can be inconvenient, stressful and, at times, even dangerous. Maps are the traditional tools used for guidance but many people find maps difficult to use. In recent years, new tools like outdoor Augmented Reality (AR) have become available which allow virtual navigation cues to be directly overlaid on the real world, potentially overcoming the limitations of maps. However, it has been hypothesized that lower effort invested in processing navigation guidance may lead to diminished spatial knowledge (SK) thereby making users of such navigation tools far more vulnerable to getting lost should the tools fail for any reason. This thesis explores the research question of how AR and maps compare as tools for pedestrian navigation guidance as well as for SK acquisition and if there is a potential for AR tools be developed that would balance the two. We present a series of studies to better understand the consequences of using AR in a pedestrian navigation tool. The first two studies compared time-on-task performance and user preferences for AR and Map navigation interfaces on an outdoor navigation task.

Until to the beginning of the 17th century the North was rather an unknown and abstract space for the average German-speaking recipient of early modern mass media (for example illustrated broadsheets, newspapers, pamphlets). In the course of the 17th century due to Denmark’s and Sweden’s participation in the Thirty Years War, the northern regions became a central topic in the early modern mass media and therefore forced the recipient to be more aware of it. In the course of the second half of the 17th century the northern kingdoms became less important for the publicists in the Holy Roman Empire and instead they laid their focus on the politics of French and the Ottoman Empire. Thus, the image of the northerners and their stereotypes, which had been introduced to the German speaking readers in the course of the Thirty Years War, lived on until the beginning of the 18th century. Nevertheless, the Great Northern War (1700–1721) brought the people from the northern regions back to the media landscape of the Holy Roman Empire and about the same time the illustrated broadsheet – an almost antiquated genre of mass media that had struggled with the upcoming of the new modern genre ‘newspaper’ – experienced a kind of a renaissance.

The aim of this article is to describe how the northern region, with a focus on Sweden, was depicted in early modern mass media between the 15th and the 18th centuries. I will show continuities and changes of the visual and textual representation of ‘northerners’ and ‘Sweden’ in early modern mass media, which were published in the Holy Roman Empire between around 1500 until the end of the Great Northern War in 1721.