Cognitive Mapping, Travel Behavior, and Access to Opportunity

Abstract

In this paper we combine theoretical and empirical research on cognitive mapping with our own initial research on the topic to suggest how cognitive mapping might be employed to help us better understand and predict travel behavior, emphasizing how spatial cognition shapes access to opportunity. We argue that the path-based, cumulative process of spatial learning, during which the cognitive map develops primarily through wayfinding and travel experience, affects accessibility by determining whether and how destinations are encoded into a person's cognitive map. Variations in cognitive mapping, spatial knowledge, and resultant travel behavior can vary between individuals or among groups in systematic ways. Some of these differences are related directly to previous travel experience, including experience with various travel modes. Such variations in spatial knowledge can result in different levels of functional accessibility, despite ostensibly similar locations, demographics, and other factors commonly thought to influence travel behavior.Our initial survey of residents in three Los Angeles neighborhoods suggests that cognitive mapping is indeed influenced by neighborhood and travel mode experience, in addition to demographic characteristics. Such modally constructed cognitive maps, which are likely to vary systematically by both location and socio-economic status, may affect perceptions of activity opportunities in ways that travel behavior researchers are only beginning to understand. To a carless job seeker, job opportunities not easily reached by transit are effectively out of reach and even transparent. Modally constructed cognitive maps, in other words, are key to understanding both travel behavior and accessibility in cities.Mondschein, Blumenberg, and Taylor 1 INTRODUCTIONCoined in 1948 by Edward C. Tolman (1), the term cognitive map refers to the internal mental representation of environmental information. Both a process and a product of the mind, cognitive mapping is essential for spatial behavior and decision-making -whether rummaging in a refrigerator, traveling across a continent, or traversing a metropolitan area. The primary purpose of cognitive mapping is to enable individuals to make choices related to the spatial environment. Some transportation researchers have begun to engage with cognitive mapping to a limited degree, acknowledging that travel and transportation systems are influenced by and themselves influence spatial cognition (2, 3).So far, much of the focus in transportation research has been placed on how cognitive mapping influences path selection, the routes chosen by travelers. However, the relationship between travel and spatial cognition extends beyond route choice. Cognitive mapping encompasses individuals' knowledge not only of potential travel routes but also of destinations themselves, as well as their proximity, purpose, desirability, and familiarity As such, spatial cognition shapes each person's access to opportunities in the urban environment. Variation in cognitive...

Do modes of transportation and GPS affect cognitive maps of Londoners?

“…Investment involves designing route planners or designing spots in more crowded cities for people to have access to cheap or free bicycle usage. Transportation studies reveal that cognitive maps are affected by travel mode experience in addition to demographic characteristics (Mondschein et al, 2005), and the most sustainable transport solution is considered to be 'bike-and-ride', a combination of bicycle and public transport (Martens, 2007In Ehrgott et al, 2012. For cyclists, the shortest and safest routes (Ehrgott et al, 2012) with less turn frequency, less slope, more intersection control and traffic volumes (Broach et al, 2012) are preferable, therefore they check more factors regarding the route they are taking and it seems reasonable to state that they have more route options in their mind so their cognitive maps must be more complete.…”