| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 地理學系 === 100 === Whether living in the concrete jungles, fields, countryside or stark desert, people have the instincts to construct their own spatial cognition based on the “wayfinding behavior”. In “The Image of the City” (translated by Song Bo Qin in 1977), Lynch mentions that wayfinding behavior helps people cultivate their images of the city. People develop their spatial cognition in the process of wayfinding, thus constructing their own cognitive maps. The complicated cognitive maps constructed by adults, based on their own wayfinding behavior and strategies are results of constant learning and experiencing. As for children, who are unfamiliar with the world, how do they learn to find the way and cultivate simpler cognitive maps at the beginning? For the children who live in the city and the countryside, do the differences of landmark and route choice lead to different wayfinding behaviors and cognitive maps?
In order to answer these questions, the research aims to employ qualitative methods to discover the differences of the spatial cognitive maps between six grade elementary students at Sanchong District, Tamsui District and Pinglin District in New Taipei City. In particular, it takes into account the three following aspects: the elements of gender, familiarity and urban-rural differences.
The study reports that, on gender aspect, boys perform better than girls on the mapping ability and the form of road expression. On familiarity aspect, the transportation means children take are used to measure their familiarity with the environment. While showing no specific results relating to this aspect, the research however points to the fact that the longer the children live there, the more landmarks they are able to draw. For the ones that have used electronic maps, the percentage of drawing planar surfaces with described objects appears to be higher. Moreover, on urban-rural difference aspect, children from urban environments produce more planar drawings with detailed descriptions while rural children often draw pictorial images and produce pictographic-type maps, and the items of their perception are also dramatically different.
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