Elsevier

Cognitive Psychology

Volume 10, Issue 4, October 1978, Pages 422-437
Cognitive Psychology

Distortions in judged spatial relations

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Abstract

In three experiments, we explore distortions in subjects' judgments of relative geographical relations. People make large systematic errors in judging the geographical relations between two locations that are in different geographical or political units. There is a strong tendency to distort the judged relation to conform with the relation of the superordinate political unit. To account for this result, we present a model in which spatial information is stored hierarchically. Spatial relations between any two locations are stored explicitly only if those locations are within the same superordinate unit. Spatial relations not stored are inferred by combining the relations from between and within superordinate units.

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This study is a portion of a PhD dissertation submitted to the University of California, San Diego by the first author. This research was supported by Grant NS 07454 from the National Institute of Health to Donald Norman.

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