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Are Places Concepts? Familarity and Expertise Effects in Neighborhood Cognition

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Spatial Information Theory (COSIT 2009)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 5756))

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Abstract

Named urban neighborhoods (localities) are often examples of vague place extents. These are compared with current knowledge of vagueness in concepts and categories within semantic memory, implying graded membership and typicality. If places are mentally constructed and used like concepts, this might account for their cognitive variability, and help us choose suitable geospatial (GIS) data models. An initial within-subjects study with expert geographic surveyors tested specific predictions about the role of central tendency, ideals, context specificity, familiarity and expertise in location judgements – theoretically equivalent to categorization. Implications for spatial data models and a further research agenda are suggested.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research, C530, Ordnance Survey, Romsey Road, Southampton, SO16 4GU, U.K.

    Clare Davies

Authors
  1. Clare Davies
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Iowa, 316 Jessup Hall, 52242, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Kathleen Stewart Hornsby

  2. Naval Academy Research Institute, 29240, Brest Naval, France

    Christophe Claramunt

  3. Groupe Cognition Humaine, LIMSI-CNRS, Université de Paris-Sud, 91403, Orsay, France

    Michel Denis

  4. LIMSI-CNRS, Université de Paris-Sud, 91403, Orsay, France

    Gérard Ligozat

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© 2009 Crown copyright 2009. Reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey

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Davies, C. (2009). Are Places Concepts? Familarity and Expertise Effects in Neighborhood Cognition. In: Hornsby, K.S., Claramunt, C., Denis, M., Ligozat, G. (eds) Spatial Information Theory. COSIT 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5756. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03832-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03832-7_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-03831-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-03832-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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