Some Effects of Layer Tinting of Maps

Abstract

Naval Postgraduate SchoolStimmary.-The purpose of this study was to examine the effects on the perceptual processes when the contours of a map are layer tinted with various colors. Data from military officers serving as Ss indicated layer tinting significantly reduced the times to determine altitudes of specific locations on a map. However, layer tinting had a detrimental effect and significantly increased times to determine grid coordinates on the same map.

The Ability of Elementary School Children to Analyse General Reference and Thematic Maps

“…In contrast, our results show that the depiction of hypsometric tints on the background impaired, to a certain degree, students' ability to extract information. Our results are in accordance with those of DeLucia (1972) and Kempf and Poock (1969), who found that the use of shaded relief terrain symbology or tints seems to impede adult readers' efforts to extract two-dimensional information.…”

“…On the other hand, R.P. Kempf and G.K. Poock (1969) showed that tints may have a detrimental effect on the two-dimensional information of the map. In addition, Alan DeLucia's experimental results with adults "tend to indicate support for the notion that the use of shaded relief terrain symbology on a map to some degree impairs the ability of a map-reader to extract non-terrain information" (1972,17).…”

Perceptually Shaded Slope Maps for the Visualization of Digital Surface Models

“…There have been several experimental comparisons of these three types of relief representation. Kempf and Poock (1969) found that contour lines supplemented with hypsometric tinting produced faster response times for elevationvalue recovery than maps without layer tints, although tinting interfered with the map reader's ability to recover coordinates (e.g., latitude and longitude). De Lucia (1972) found that, of shaded relief and contour lines, shaded relief tended to increase the amount of time needed to decode other map symbols.…”

A Comparison of Alternate Formats for the Portrayal of Terrain Relief on Military Maps

“…In related research on the value of layer tints Kempf and Poock (1969) used 12 tints, varying in both intensity and color, to compare contour lines versus contour lines plus layer tints. Their experiment showed that the addition of layer tints improved performance on determining the altitude of given points, but had a detrimental effect on determining grid coordinates.…”

“…In view of these problems with the more traditional approaches to map format evaluation, an approach was developed focused on the information extracted from the map. Somewhat similar approaches were used by Kempf and Poock (1969), who measured time and accuracy in determining elevation and grid coordinates, and by Phillips, DeLucia and Skelton (1975), who required participants to extract 12 types of information from maps. Both the approach of Kempf and Poock (1969) and that of Phillips (1975) have some similarities to the current approach.…”