Blindfolded college students learned simple paths either by moving their fingers over the successive points of a map of the path, walking through the path laid out on the floor, or (with the blindfold temporarily removed) viewing a map of the path. They were tested for their knowledge of the path by having to locate a target; still blindfolded, they were placed at a point on that path and required to move to another point on the path. This required either moving toward the next point in the sequence (e.g., going from Point 2 to Point 3) or taking a shortcut (e.g., going from Point 2 to Point 4).The experiments evaluated the hypotheses (a) that the learning produced a cognitive map and (b) that this map was picturelike (i.e., was a visual image). Our general strategy was to consider the special properties of pictures and then to demonstrate that the behavior of the students reflected the presence of those properties. The special properties singled out were (a) simultaneous representation of sequentially placed points and (b) orientation. If the students have an internal pictorial map then these properties imply that they should take shortcuts with the same ease as they take the originally learned path segments and that certain tests^, specifiable a priori, should be relatively difficult for the participants. Both implications were tested and confirmed. The manifestation of orientation was particularly dramatic, with the participants moving in the wrong direction (angle error greater than 90°) on more than 25% of the specified trials.The last decade has seen increasing inter-As one might expect in a field that is new, est in how human adults interpret, remem-complex, and viewed from different perspecber, and interact with space. Three traditions tives, research methods are extremely varied, have contributed to this interest. One is Pia-These range from field situations (people get's research on how a child's conception learning the shape of a tunnel connecting of space changes with maturation (Piaget two buildings, Kozlowski & Bryant, 1977;& Inhelder, 1967). A second is the work by students constructing a map of their campus, Tolman (1932, 1948), who stamped indeli-Baird, Merrill, & Tannenbaum, 1979) to the bly into the literature the concept of the cog-most abstract lab conditions (subjects pushnitive map. Finally, there is the tradition of ing one of two buttons to indicate whether the geographers, who have been concerned a point in a given stimulus configuration with how people view their environment, would be to their right or left, Hinztsman, from the campus (Sherman, Croxton, & O'Dell, &Arndt, 1981; memory being tested Giovanatto, 1979) and neighborhood (Lee, for the vertical arrangement of abstract 1973) to the city (Karen, Bladen, & Singh, shapes, Tversky, 1981). In between these 1980; Lynch, 1960) and the world (Saari-extremes are attempts to simulate field renen, 1973).search in the laboratory. Allen, Siegel, and
