Images and Mental MaImages and Mental Maps

8/12/2019 Images and Mental MaImages and Mental Maps

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Images and Mental MapsAuthor(s): Yi-Fu TuanSource: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Jun., 1975), pp.205-213Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.on behalf of the Association of American GeographersStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2562082.

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IMAGES AND MENTAL MAPSYI-FU TUAN

ABSTRACT. Image and mental map appear frequentlyn the literature fenvironmentalerception,ften n an abstract r metaphoricalense. As psycholog-ical phenomenamental magesdo not play any essentialrole in spatialbehavior,nor n abstract hinking. o accountfor patialabilitywe need to postulate sche-mata, rather han magesand mentalmaps. The mentalmap, a special kindofimage,doeshave its functions: or xample, t s a mnemonic evice; t allows men-tal practicewhich promotes ssurance n subsequentphysicalperformance;t is,like the real map, a way to organizedata; it is an imaginaryworld,complexandattractive nough o tempt eople out oftheir abitualrounds.To generatemagesfocal attentioneemsnecessary.n an inattentivetate, killful ehavior n spaceis stillpossibleunder he guidance f somaticntelligencer schemata. EY WORDS:Attention,magery, magination-image,emory,Mentalmaps, Percept, chemata,Spatialbehavior.IN the last fifteen ears geographers aveshown increasing nterest n mental phe-nomena.' Perhapsno branchof humangeog-raphy s nowwhollynnocent fwhatmight ecalled a psychologicalperspective.With thenew interest omes a newvocabulary. n geo-graphicalwritings in the iteraturefplanning,architecture,nd urbansociology,wordssuchas perception, mage, cognitive tructure, er-

ceptual space, schema, ndmentalmaps occurwithmounting requency.Whatdo thesewordsmean? They are not neologisms. They lookfamiliar, nd perhapsfor this reason writerswho are notprofessional hilosophers r psy-Accepted orpublication January 975.Dr. Tuan is Professor f Geography t the Universityof Minnesota n Minneapolis,MN 55455.

1 n theearlydaysof psychologyhemind ccupiedthecenter f the tage nd mental magery as one ofthe most mportantoncepts orunderstandingumanbehavior.With the growth f behaviorism n the1920s,mentalmagery eganto fade as a serious ub-ject forinvestigationn the English-speaking orld.Behaviorists ecognized nly behavior: mental phe-nomenawere simply dentified ith behavior. incethe1960s magery nce more became a serious ub-jectof study or scientificsychologists. eographersare in an ambivalent osition etween hese wo psy-chologicaldevelopments.hough geographers rofessan interestn the mind their ocus of study emainsobservable ehavior.The mind appears as a sort ofghostn the machine hatmakes t easier to under-stand ertain inds f human ction.

chologists endto use themwithout arnest f-fort o clarifyhewords'meaning nd impor-tance. Image, for example, is an artificiallikenessor pictureof an object; it is also apercept ustainedby current ensory nput,amentalpicturenthe memory,nd furthermoreit could also meana people's schematicnd in-directknowledgeof place, as in the expres-sion theEuropean's mageoftheNewWorld.Mental map maybe the streetplan a personrecallsas he givesdirectionso a friend, r itcould be the geographer's artographic epre-sentation f people's attitudes owardplaces.2

2 It is not mypurpose o review heextensiveitera-ture on environmentalerceptionn orderto showhow key mental erms ike image and mentalmapare used. Such a reviewwould be a worthwhilendambitious ndertakingn its own right. y and largehistorical eographersse theterm mage n the samesense as historians,hat s, as a people'sconcept f aplace or regionwhichtheyhave not directlyxperi-enced and which an be expressedn words, ictures,or maps. Thus J. M. Powell, a geographer,poke ofthe nineteenthentury roteanmagesof Australia,and Howard MumfordJones,a literaryhistorian,spoke of the image and anti-image f the NewWorld.Urban geographers,ollowingKevin Lynch(architectnd planner), use image in the narrowersenseof how people restructuren words nd sketchesthe visual images of places that they have directlyexperience. sychologistsalk of image as a specialkind of eventthat occursbrieflyn an individual'smind.Theideaof mental r cognitivemap was introducedby the psychologist. C. Tolman to accountfor thefactthatrats, nd presumablylso men,respondnot

ANNALS OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS Vol. 65, No. 2, June 1975i 1975 bythe AssociationofAmericanGeographers. Printed n U.S.A.205

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206 Yi6Fu TUAN JuneWords ike mage ndmentalmap are ooselyand variously efined. ave they ecome poeticmetaphors ept n use outof habit,or do theyin factcapture mportantacetsof humangeo-graphicalbehavior?The purpose of thispaper

is to showthatmental vents re elusivebutnotineffable, hatthey ustify rather pecial vo-cabulary, nd that their tudy ontributesun-damentally o theunderstandingf humanac-tivitiesn space. The approachis descriptive:mentalphenomena re made more tangibleby relating hem o real life ituations.SCHEMATAInterest n the mindrests argely n the be-lief hathuman ctions, rom indingne's way

around own odiscoveringheNewWorld, reguidedbymental magesand maps. s this rue,and iftrue,what s thespecific atureof suchimagery?t is assumedthat omplicatedmove-ments are guided by rational decisions andplans carried n the head. An assumption fthiskind can easily lead to wrong nferencesconcerning he nature of the mental world.Elaborate actions takenby animals, ncludinghumanbeings,do notnecessarily equire pic-tures and maps in the head. Take theex-onlyto specific nd successive timuli n the environ-ment,but to entire nvironmentalields.An animalappears apableof elaborating cognitive-like apofthefield nd acting n it accordingly. nderthe n-fluence f PeterGould and ThomasSaarinen, mongothers, eographersend o see mentalmaps primarilyas 1) cartographic epresentationsf how peoplediffern their valuation f places, and 2) freehandmaps that people can draw-outlinesof city streetsandcontinents.J. M. Powell, Medical Promotion nd the Con-sumptivemmigranto Australia, GeographicalRe-view, Vol. 63 (1973), p. 449; Howard MumfordJones, The Image of the New World and TheAnti-Image, in 0 Strange New World (New York:TheViking ress,1964), pp. 1-70; KevinLynch,TheImage of the City Cambridge:MIT Press,1960); E.C. Tolman, CognitiveMaps in Rats and Men,Psychological Review, Vol. 55 (1948), pp. 189-208;Peter Gould and RodneyWhite,Mental Maps (Har-mondsworth: elican Books, 1974); Thomas F. Saar-inen, The Use of ProjectiveTechniques n Geo-graphical Research, in William H. Ittelson, ed.,Environment and Cognition (New York: AcademicPress,1973), pp. 29-52. For the many, hough y nomeans ll, senses-ofhe ermsmages ndmentalmap,see RogerM. Downs and David Stea,eds., mage andEnvironmentChicago: AldinePublishing ompany,1973).3 In current cademic thinking,liberals eek todeny basic distinctionsetween nimals and people,

ample ofsmall-brainednimalswhich re cap-able of long-distancemigration. he Americangolden plover swings from Arctic breedinggroundsto the southeastern oast of SouthAmerica ndback. Its spatial bilitys most m-pressive, et t is unrealistico supposethat hebird navigates its intercontinental oursethroughonsultation ith ntricate elestial ndterrestrialharts n its head.Birdsmaynot evenhave images as humansknowthem,much essmentalmaps.Theirability o traverse ast dis-tancesunderdifferentonditions f ight nd skyrequiresdetailedexplanation,whichwe do notyet possess. It seems unlikely,however,thatthe visual mage,somethingike a picture,willbe a component f any sophisticatedxplana-tion.4Whatneeds to be understood s the ani-mal's schemata cognitive tructuresr codingsystems) hat nable t torespond ppropriatelyto shifting atterns f environmentaltimuli.The usefulness f theterms schema or cog-nitive tructure ies in that hey o notsuggestpicture, whethermaterial r mental.whereas conservatives elieve that the distinctions,basedon man'shigh ymbolic apacity, re importantand shouldnot be overlooked.s animal territorialityessentially he same as human erritoriality?re ani-mal systems f communicationssentially he sameas human anguage? thologists nd behavioristsookhard for similarities, hereashumanists nd linguistsof the Chomsky chool are primarilyoncernedwiththe differences.his debate s probably erennial, ndit should ertainly e encouraged.4 SusanneK. Langercriticizes he widespread end-ency for anthropomorphicnterpretationf animalmigrationnd spatialbehavior nMind: An Essay onHuman Feeling (Baltimore:The JohnsHopkinsUni-versity ress, 1972), Vol. II, pp. 45-101. She notes(p. 90): All explanations f animalpathfindingsnavigation y celestialcues impute xcessively ighmental perations o birds, ats, etaceans.. and fish.Yet the amazing acts are patently bservable, ndtypicallyre carried hrough ithoutmuchhesitation,trialand error, r apparentmisinterpretationf sig-nals. Clearlythere s somethingmorethana use ofzodiac signs nd sunreadingsnvolvedn theoriginalorientationfmigratingirds.Perhaps ur searchforthe basic navigation ompass n their xternalworldis a vaineffort,ecause neither irdsnorbeastssteertheir ssential oursesby any compasslikemeans. tis at eastclearthat amiliarandmarkslay very ittlerole in how pigeonsfind heirway home, n strikingcontrast o human beingswho dependon familiarlandmarksnd whosemaps are systems f andmarks.When frosted ontact enses re putover theeyesofpigeons, hey an stillfind heirway home. See Wil-liam T. Keeton, The Mystery f Pigeon Homing,ScientificAmerican, Vol. 231 (1974), p. 105.



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1975 IMAGES AND MENTAL MAPS 207Human beings have large, rains. Our actsare rational, y whichwe mean that hey ollowmental or material plans. Intelligent ctionseems to require specific wareness,yet it iswell known that not only complicatedmove-

ments can be carried out without plan orimagebut that he nterventionf magerymaywell hinder performance.A beginning ypistneeds a plan of the keys, n experienced ypistdoesn't. His fingers ly over the keyboard.Whiletyping e is totally nawareof theposi-tion of the keys. After yping e may be hardput oexpress erbally rthrough riting herethealphabets re locatedon the keyboard.Hehas to make a special mental effort o tell ordepict omething hathis fingersan do effort-lessly.Consider hekindsof movement hat nterestgeographers, hose that nvolve changesof lo-cation at differentcales. Beginwith heyoungchild who has learned o walk. He is soon ableto totter bout the room or in the backyard,not randomly, ut from starting ointto adestination nd then back. According o JeanPiaget, a mathematicianmight ook at themoves objectively, hat is, from an externalviewpoint, nd characterize he motor eries asa group of displacements r as reversibility:the young hild can be said to have learned tocoordinatehis displacementn a whole systemwhich llows him to return o the pointofde-parture. oes thismean thatthe child's tour sguidedby an imageor a plan thathe can rep-resentforhimself? iaget's answer s not atall. Even children our ndfiveyearsold,whocan go fromhome to school and return lone,appearunable to representheir athoftravel;they re notconscious of having nd followinga plan. Insofar s they re able to representhepathto school t s a kindof motor epresenta-tion. A five-year-oldhild might ay: I leavethehouse, I go like that (gesture), then ikethat gesture), then make a turningike that,then reach school. 5

5JeanPiaget,The Child and Reality New York:VikingCompass Edition,1974), pp. 18-19. In bookafterbook Piaget arguesthatyoungchildren ave ahigh degree of what he calls sensorimotorntelli-gence, utdenies hat hey re able to conceptualizetheir cts. He also denies mentalmages nd ide-ationalbehavior o animals. It is veryhard to con-ceiveof anyrepresentationecausethe animalhas nosemioticnstrumentslanguage or the like), and tocall up 'mental mages' presupposes capacityfor

Adults, n the course of a day, make manyhighly omplex yet undeliberatedmovements.Perhaps hemostdramatic xamples ome frommotoring.Many ong-distance riversnd com-mutershave knownthe experience f blank-ing out while they re on a monotonous ndfamiliar tretch f the road: theirbodies takeover the driving, esponding o curves nd evento traffic ignals correctly,while their mindsareempty r occupiedwith ther hings. riffithWilliams has collected cases of what he callshighway ypnosis. Hypnosis an be variouslyinduced, s, for example,by the gentle urvesofthe highway, he muffled urrof a smoothlyrunning ngine, he hum of the tires, he glarefromthe hood duringdaytime nd from theroad, lit up by headlights, t night.One driverdescribeshis experience s follows:6

I discovered his fact (amnesia) while driving tnight from Portland,Oregon to San Francisco,California. he lights f a town pproached nd Irealized hat had been n an almost leep conditionforabout 25 miles. nasmuch s I knew he roadIhad traveledwas not traight,t was apparent hathad negotiated he road, making ll theturns, tc.I did not remember the stretch f road at all . . . Ipurposely ried t several imes fter hat nd foundthat could drivemiles nd mileswithoutmemoryof it, and whileresting.n each case, the momentany driving mergency ppeared, became fullyawake.It is a common tendency o infer he pres-ence of deliberate hought nd of articulatedmental mages when we see complexbehavior.One feels thatmigratingirds must somehowcarry elestialcharts n theirheads which heyinterpret iththe skill of an astronomer, ndterritorialnimals have mental maps of their

evocationwhich s notonly mpossible o verify utis,moreover, uperfluous,ince there s, in thiscase,perception f that total field:the rat does not haveto imagine he objects or eventswhich are not per-ceptible t thetime.All ithas to do is to combinetsmotions ndperceptionsn assessing he ndicesmorecloselyeach time. t does nothave to form totalpicture s a draftsman r cartographer oes. Thereis, of course, n overall ystem, utthis s withinheaction schemataand not in representation. eanPiaget,Biology nd Knowledge Chicago: The Uni-versity f ChicagoPress,1971), pp. 263-64.6 Griffith illiams, HighwayHypnosis:An Hy-pothesis, he International ournal f ClinicalandExperimentalypnosis, ol. 11 (1963), p. 147. Fora novelist'sdescription f highway ompetence e-spite absentmindedness,ee Christophersherwood,A SingleMan (New York: Simon nd Schuster,964),pp. 35-36.



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208 Yi-Fu TUAN Junearea comparable o the mapsthat geographerdraws. Such beliefs are unproven. They arenot likely to be true. Reflection n our ownexperience howsthatdeliberate hought fthekindwe use whenwe play chessor plan a familytrip s seldom employed n routinized ircula-tions. Such movements re not controlledbyany image or plan that can be representednwords, diagrams, or gestures; they manifestrather omatic ntelligence.7 he body is cap-able of responding o changes n environmentalstimuli nd adapting to them successfully naccordancewith ts own schemata.The natureof the schemata s little known, except thatthey re partly nnate and partly he resultofcumulative xperience.Unlike the mage, che-mataand cognitive tructuresannotbe directlyexperienced: hey an onlybe inferred.The schemata of the lower animals appearto be largely nnate. Their impressivemotorskills re out of ine with heirmodest apacityto learn, hat s, benefit tepby step fromnter-actionswith he environment. ithhumanbe-ings experience and learning clearly play amajorrole nbuilding p the schemata. f peo-ple can type with great peed and drive a carover winding roads for many miles withoutthinking,t is nonetheless bvious that thesemotor skillshave to be acquiredfirst tep bystep.The aspiring ypistmustmake a consciouseffort o memorize he plan of the keyboard,andthe novicedriver as tobe taught ya ver-balizing,gesticulatingeacher, r learn himselfthrough he careful tudy f a manual contain-ing diagrams nd plans. Even the amoeba canlearn. Human beingsunder hypnosis an initi-ate minor adaptive acts. Sustained nnovativebehavior,however, equires hecooperation fthe deliberatingmind. How important, hen,areimages nd mentalmapsto thinking?Whatis the function f imagery n adaptiveand in-novative patial behavior?

IMAGERYA percept s sustained y the nformationnthe environment: e see what s beforeus. An7 Somatic ntelligence, animal ntelligence, ndsensorimotorntelligence re notmetaphoricalmis-usesofthe word ntelligence,hichmeans capacityfor logical thought. . H. Price argues that ogicalnotions uch s not, r, and if exist npreverbal hink-ing nd nbodilymovementshat reenacted houghts;H. H. Price, Thinking nd Experience (London:Hutchinson niversity ibrary, 969), pp. 123-43.

image,on the otherhand, s something e seewhen theenvironmentaltimuli o not appearto ustifyt. mayrecallmy comfortable ed athome when am actually t a crowdedparty.When percept nd image are examined losely,however, hey an be shown o differn degreerather han n kind.A percept, fter ll, is nota snapshot registering echanically nviron-mental nformation;he eye is highly electiveof thestimuli owhich t willrespond.A mem-ory-image,n theother and,maybe promptedbya current timulus: old air from hekitchenice box can call forth n image of snowboundMinneapolis.8Abilityto see is obviously m-portant o humanunderstanding,ut whatcog-nitive unctions o visual mages serve?

Whenpeople think, mages mayormaynotarise nthemind. mages do appear nvoluntar-ily in dreaming nd daydreaming. eople canalso deliberatelyummon cenes from he past.Sometimes uch memory-imagesre so vividthat hey re likepictures rojected n a screento which one can turn o examinethe details.These are knownas eidetic mages. They de-cline n sharpness nd frequency ith ge andverbal education.They appear to help childrento affix he concrete sensory spects of theenvironmentn their minds; pseudo-sensoryimagesgive children ime o appraisetheir ur-roundingworld n their wn way.9With adultstherole of imageryn thinkingnd learningsless clear. Some people claim dependency nimageswhen hey hink, thers n words. cien-tistsmay be visualizersor verbalizers; omemake use ofboth magesand wordswhentheycogitate, nd a few claim to use neither.One

8 The commonsense istinction etween mentalimage nd percept s importantnd must e preserved.Nevertheless, e shouldnot ose sight f the factthatthe mage that s usually alled a percept s as mucha construct f the nervous ystem s is a memoryimage . . . All images are the end product of a processof construction,nd that he usual dichotomy f per-cept vs. mental mage should be replacedby a con-tinuum n which hese pposednotions re ideal casesrarelyfever ttained n reality. obertR. Holt, Onthe Nature and Generality f Mental Imagery, nPeterW. Sheehan, d., The Function nd Nature ofImagery New York: Academic Press, 1972), p. 12.9Gordon Allport, Eidetic magery, ritishJour-nal of Psychology, ol. 15 (1924), pp. 99-110; Leon-ard W. Doob, The UbiquitousAppearanceof Im-ages, in Sheehan,op. cit.,footnote , pp. 319-20;and MardiJ.Horowitz, Visual Imagery nd Cogni-tiveOrganization, mericanJournal f Psychiatry,Vol. 123 (1967), p. 945.



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1975 IMAGES AND MENTAL MAPS 209study of scientists hows that anthropologistsand psychologiststend to be verbalizers,whereasbiologists and physicists end to bevisualizers.'0Geographerswere not includedin the study.Withtheir ikingfor pictures ndmaps, they re perhaps good visualizers.The declineof magerywith ge and with n-creasing verbal prowess suggests hat imagesare a luxury n thinking,omewhat ike illus-trations n a book or slides n a lecture. urelylogical processesare not imageable,althoughtheability o envisage omplex iguresmayhelpone to sustain high evel of thought.Mathe-maticians, or xample,doodle.The weird inesand cones theydraw may be suggestivemodelsor symbolsof N-dimensional pace, but theycannotbe its mage. Napoleon has a low opin-ion of the ntellectualole of magery. e is re-ported o have said that hosewhoform pic-tureofeverythingre unfit o command.F. C.Bartlett,nterpretinghis emark,aid: A com-manderwho approaches battlewith picturebeforehimofhow such and sucha fightwenton such and such an occasion,will find, wominutes fter heforceshave oined, hat ome-thinghas gone awry.Then his picture s de-stroyed.He has nothing n reserve xceptan-other ndividual icture.If imagery as only a supportiver marginalrole in the more demanding indsof thinking,what s its functionn life'sroutine ognitivef-forts?A geographer, or example,might sk:do mental or memory mageshelp people tofind heirway about town?The answerwouldseem to be a clear-cutyes untilwe pause toexaminewhat mental magesare. An image sa perceptof the past. Suppose you are in acityyou have visitedbefore, ut in whichyoufeel ost. Clearly t servesno purposeto closeyoureyesand summon magesas memoryid.Ifwhat you now see, the percept, rovides n-adequateclues to orientation,hen he past per-cept (image) can only be even less adequate,for hepercept lready ontainsmemory racesof thepast in additionto current nformationfromthe environment. oreover,the imagesthat can be recalledmay bear littlerelation o

10 Anne Rose, A Studyof Imagery n ResearchScientists, ournal f Personality, ol. 19 (1951),pp. 459-70.11F. C. Bartlett,emembering: Study nExperi-mental and Social Psychology Cambridgeat theUniversityress,1932), p. 220.

your presentdifficulty,or the occasions thatcaused particular scenes in the continuousstream f past experience o be stored n yourmindmay notbe relevant o yourpresentdi-lemma.When you are lost you need a realmap and the help of streetnames. Recallingodd images of shop windows,street orners,and statues are no help. Would theyhelp iftheycan be spatiallyorganized into mentalmaps?

MENTAL MAPSA mentalmap is a special typeof imagewhich s even less directly elatedto sensoryexperience.An image which s a mental mapratherhan picture s obviously construct.

In fact,no perceptor image is a merephoto-graph freality.A percept s notonly heregis-tering fcurrentnvironmentaltimuli utalsoan imaginative ffortroducedunder he needsofthemoment.To see is to create. An imageis doubly construct: toriginates s a percept,and thensuffersurtherransformationnderthepressureof the occasion thatprompts tsrecall. A mental map may be the image of areal map,that s, an abstractionf a real mapwhich s itself n abstraction f reality.Mapscan of course be created n themindwithoutrecourse o pen andpaper. The discretemagesofa city-forexample, cenes ofshops,monu-ments, nd street orners-can be restructuredmentally nto a plan. What is the use of suchan image-plan?f we are in a familiarworldand are merelygoing home in a routineway,no mentalmap (in thesense of an image-plan)is required:ourclevermoves hrough he sceneneed only heguidance funfocused erceptualcues and imageless chemata. f, on the otherhand,we are lostmentalmapsmayhelpto theextentthat theyprovide something o thinkwith; heymake t easier ofocus ndreorganizeourthoughts.heycannot,however, e read offin thewaythat a real map can. If they re soclear thatwe can count the streets n them,thenwe are not lost and have no cause to ap-peal to memorymages: percepts, hemselvespartial productsof memory, uffice.'2Mental

12 Counting s not normally ossible in memoryimages, venwhen hey eemvery ivid.Most sensoryperceptionsre infactratherketchyvenwhentheyseem sharpand full of countable detail. When Ilookat thecorrugatedronroof amaware that amseeing stripes', ut I am certainly ot aware of thenumber f these.To ascertain heirnumber must



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210 Yi-Fu TUAN Junemaps, then, re not representablemagesthatpeople carry n theirheads as theygo abouttheir usiness, orarethey freal usewhenweare lost.Mentalmaps have otherfunctionsngeographicalknowledgeand behavior. Hereare fiveexamples.1) Mental maps make it possible to givedirectionso a stranger. hereare twowaysofbeing helpful:one is to go withhim,and theother s to tellhim how to get there.We cantellhim hroughpeech, ketches,ndgesticula-tion;butbeforewe cantellwemust ummon nimage of the route our enquirerhas to take.Wepauseand then ay, Ah,yes.You goto thethird rafficight, urnright nd youwill see achurch t the end of theroad; turn eft t thechurch, o another wo blocksandyou willseethe restaurant n your right. None of thefeaturesmentionedmaybe visiblefromwherewe andtheenquirer tand.We call up a mentalmap which s then passed on to the enquirer.Unless the communicationucceeds and theenquirerhas a similarmap in mind he willnot know the way andwill have to ask fordi-rections gain at the trafficight.Mentalmapsprepareus to communicatepatial nformationeffectively.

2) Mental mapsmake t possibletorehearsespatialbehavior n themindso thatwhenweare actuallyon the roadwe can actwith de-greeof assurance hatwe wouldnot otherwisehave. Such a mentalexercise s not necessarywhen we move in a routinefashion n thor-oughlyfamiliarterritory.t cannot be donewhenwe do notknow heway,for henweneedto study real map. Onlywhenwe thinkweknow the waybut are not absolutely ure,dowe consultour mentalmap forthepurposeofmakingmental rialruns.Modernmanis foot-loose; he oftenhas to go to places that areslightly nown.These maybe themost com-mon occasionswhenmentalmaps emerge, e-cause they serve a definitefunction.Theyallow mental practice,that is, the symbolicrehearsalof a physicalactivity.n driving, sin athletics,mentalpractice an improve hysi-cal performance.'3movemy eyesalongtheroof, nspectinghe stripes'one by one. And this s preciselywhat can neverdo withmymemory-imagef corrugatedoof. BrianSmith,Memory London: George Allen & Unwin,1966),p. 161.13With regard o athletics, lan Richardsonays:When high umper s waiting orhis turn o jump

3) Mental maps are a mnemonic evice. Ifwe wish to memorize events, people, andthings,t helpsto know their ocationsor evento assign themto arbitraryocations. Supposewe wantto retain n our memory he peoplewho attended a party. One technique s toidentify he individualguestswiththeirplacesaround thedining-roomable. At a laterdatewhen the need to remember he partygoersarises, it is only necessary to reproduce thementalmap of their itting ositions.This spa-tialmnemonic evice,demonstrablen psycho-logical experiments,as been known ince Ro-man times.Orators ound t useful ecause theyoftenhad to make long, fact-laden peeches.In De OratoreCicero noted that persons de-siring o trainthis faculty of memory) mustselect places and formmental mages of thethings heywish to remember nd store thoseimages n the places, so that the order of theplaces will preserve he order f the things, ndthe mages of the thingswill denote the thingsthemselves, nd we shall employ the placesand images respectivelys a wax writing-tabletand the etterswrittenn it. '144) Mentalmaps, ike realmaps,are a meansto structure nd store knowledge.Justas noteveryones enamoredof the real map and ofthe kinds f nformationt s best suited o con-tain,so noteveryone as hismentalwaresar-ranged in mental maps. Presumablygeogra-phershave the greatest endency o do so; yetthe fullest erbaltranscriptionf a mentalmapis that of an English novelist,AngusWilson.The transcriptions worthquoting at lengthbecause it says in some detail what imagingand images are like, how they develop, andunderwhat onditionhey ccur.Such accountsarevery are n social science iteratureespitethe mountingnterest n images and mentalmaps.'5and in imaginationsees' and 'feels' himselfgoingthroughhe runup, take off, ollover and landing eis engaged n mental ractice . . Improved erform-ance can result rom hisformof practice nd thatvisual andkinaestheticmaging bilitiesmaywell playa significantole in theamount f gainobtainedbyany particularndividual.Alan Richardson,MentalImagery London: Routledge& Kegan Paul, 1969),p. 56.14 FrancesA. Yates,The Artof Memory Chicago:The University f ChicagoPress, 1966), p. 22; andG. H. Bower, Analysisof a MnemonicDevice,American cientist, ol. 58 (1970), pp. 496-510.15 AngusWilson,The WildGarden Berkeley:Uni-versityf California ress, 963),pp. 119-20.



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1975 IMAGES AND MENTAL MAPS 211I failed o learnmymathematics,ut the order ndpattern hat might ave achieved rom hemwerebuiltdeep into my preferredubjects f geographyand history. f I remember t some momentparticular bject that I have seen, say the BlueMosque in Istanbul, hen thenatural endency fmy mind, if unchecked . . . , is to place this build-ing in relation o otherfamous stanbulmosquesthat haveseen, nd these nturn see visually nwhat rememberrom he wholemap of Istanbulin myBlue Guide. f I am tired nd dle thepicturewill begin automatically o expand. stanbulwillappear n a map of Turkey eside heother urkishtowns have visited, hichwill ntheir urn cquirevisual details.This map will also be markedwiththetowns failedto see, in feebler ictures f de-tails that I have only read of. . . . On the edges ofmy consciousness,waiting to slide into vision . . . isa wholeworldmap, appearingomethingike thosedemographic harts in which densely populatedareas are heavily tuddedwithblack dots,Antarc-tica largely blank. My map,however, as blackdotsofrealexperiencendgrey otsof maginationand, in between, arying hades to mark iteraryassociations, istoric vents, hehome of townsofpeoplewhom have metwhen heywere travellingabroad, and so on. Thus on my mentalmap theLondon area is a black splodge,Provencerichlyblack, Antarctica the scene of manyof my icefears) a heavygrey, ehran ightlymarkedbymyview of the airport n the early morning ours,overshaded ecause it is the residence f an oldfriend, ross-shadedy the word Mussadig nd hispyjamaed form . . . Above this world map with itsoverlaysor shadings nd collections f dramatispersonae, imespiralsupwards o that each placetoo has its historical hart eitherdatingpersonalexperiencesr bringingntomind ts historic ast.5) Mentalmaps re maginaryorlds. heydepict ttractiveoalsthat empt eople utoftheir abitualounds. mentalmap hat salsoan imaginaryorldhas interestorhistoriansandhistorical eographersecause thelps oexplainwhy eoplemigrate. oal-directedi-grations characteristicallyuman. rue, ni-malmovementsn spacecan be describednthehuman ermsfhome, ourney,oals.Ani-mal goals,however,re moreappropriatelycalled stations, ausesnecessitatedybio-logicalneeds, longroutes hat re essentiallyround rips.Human cyclicalmovement ayalso be ofthiskind.We leave home verydayto go to the office nd on thewayhomewestopbythenewsstandopickup theeveningpaper.Thesetrips an become o routinehatweno longerhink fofficend newsstandsgoals: theyre stationsna round rip hat e-gins nd ends t home.Quintessentialumanmigrationccurswhenpeopledeliberatelybandon nehome nfavor

of a distant nd unseen goal. In the nineteenthcenturymany Europeans left theirhomes forremoteparts of the world of whichtheyhadno direct xperience. hey did not go blindly:the move was a calculated risk. Theyhad im-ages of theirnew homes based on hearsay, et-ters from elatives, nd immigrationiterature.Indeed these attractivemages were a cause oftheir esire o move.Scottishfarmers,while they toiled on theedges of the moors, ould neverthelessnvisionsunnyCalifornia. uch elaboratedmentalmapsofunseenplaces are conceivable nly n humanbeings. They depend on the ability o createimagesrather hanon the ability o recallthem.Memory-image can be distinguishedfromimagination-image.he latter s more rbitrary,often ackingfirmnessnd context.A memory-imagemight howa friend iding bicycledowna narrowpath. As one continues o entertainthe image ts frame xpands naturallynd in-voluntarily o include the broader contextoftrees along the path and of fieldsbeyondthetrees.With magination-imagehecomponentsare put together eliberatelynd fancifully,hatis, arbitrarily;or example,the friendmay beperceived to ride an elephant ratherthan abicycle.The friends a memory-imagend sois the elephant, ut the two have never beenseentogether: he mage s a creative onstruc-tion,more or less arbitrary,nd because of thearbitrarinesst does not expandnaturallyntoa broader context.'6An imaginary orld s anelaborated imagination-image.A Scottishfarmer constructsCalifornia,his imaginaryworld, out of bits of his experience n thewarmer artsof Scotland nd fromwhathe hasread. The processof constructions not wellunderstood. t is the fundamental roblem nperception. ven the percept s not simplyregistrationfcurrent timuli.maginativeon-struction ffects ll aspectsof human aware-ness, ndmemory lays role nall imaginativeconstructions.f it is puzzlingthata Scottishfarmern his croft an envision unnyCalifor-nia, it is no less puzzling hatthe geography fdistant laces can be taught nd brought liveto studentswho have neverbeen there, r eventhat neperson an understandhe treet irec-tionsgivenby another.The fact thatwe neversimply ee what s beforeus differsnly n de-

16 Smith,p.cit., ootnote2,p. 142.



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212 Yi-Fu TUAN Junegree from hefact thatwe can see in themind's ye whatwe havenever ctually een.

IMAGERY, SCHEMATA, AND ATTENTIONImagerynd schemata avebeen describedseparately. heirdifferentunctionsn cogni-tion ndbehavior re suggestedy therelativeimportancef therole hat ttentionlays.Tosee nthemind's yeplaceswe havenotvisitedrequires uch concentratedttentionhat heeffortmmobilizess. Distantourneys egin nthe rmchair here dens ndUtopias recon-cocted. ycontrast,onsiderhedegree f m-aginativeffortnd attentionequirednrou-tine ravel.We drive oward he ity nd as wedo so wenotice heprominentandmarks,hechurch pire o theright,hewarmemorialothe eft, nd thebridge head thathas to becrossed. hesewenotice utbetweenhem rethenumerous eatureshat scape our atten-tion; hey re taken or ranted. rientationna new nvironments amonghemore ifficultcognitiveasks,yetonce the environmentasbecome amiliarnd wehaveestablishedha-bitualroute t is possible o move n it withonlyminimal ocalattention,ndwithoutheconscious ecourseo magery.Image,whether f the imaginativer thememory ind,s perhaps lways he result fattention.rominenteaturesuch as a toweror a bridge ecome hefociof ourperceptualfields.We seethem ow, nd theymayreturnto us later smemory-images,utmuch ogni-tiveactivityn daily ife s preattentive.re-attentiverocessesre limited o the mmedi-atepresent;heyffectmmediateodilymotionandattentiontself. nlike ocal ttention,re-attentiverocesses o notresultnthe torage

of nformationhat anberetrievedater s im-ages.17They provide hepartsout of whichfocalattention aysynthesize anydifferentscenes.Whenwe sayof a placethat t looksfamiliar, hat robably appenss that he ctofvisual ynthesiss the ame s an earlier ne:the place can thereforeook familiar venthought has undergoneubstantialhysicalchange.18 he act of visual ynthesiss an ef-fort fconstructivettentionhatmakes seofthepartial lues and unitsprovided y pre-17Ulric Neisser, ognitive sychologyNew York:Appleton-Century-Crofts,967), p. 93.18Neisser, p. cit., ootnote 7,p. 98.

attentiverocesses.his snot ll: anothernddeeperevelofcognitions involved.Whenwelook at thecollege ibrary,t is not ustanybuildingutone of a particularind hathassome pecial ignificanceor s; t salsorecog-nized n tsspatial ndtemporaletting.heseframes freferencerethe ubconsciousche-mata thatguideperceptionnd imagination.They rethe hirdevel f ognitionhat nder-girdsttentivendpreattentiverocesses.che-mata, specially hose f space and time, reinpartgeneticallyetermined;n part hey rethenonspecificutorganizedepresentationfpastexperience.19Whathappenswhen ttentionanes, s, forexample, henwearetired? hepower oen-visage an imaginary orld s lost. Objectsaround s osetheir ividnessndparticularity.Themindssusceptibleo nvasion ymemory-images.When ired nd nattentiveecanstilldrive carorwalk roundbstaclesnfamiliarspace. t is theonecognitivebility e retain.ColinWilsongivesa picturesqueccount fhowfatigue ightffectttentionndyet eaveour motor ctivity ore r less ntact.20

In themorning oumight avenoticed hatone ofthegirlshad nice legs and that theotherhad re-centlydyedherhair. Now they are merely twogirls ; he filterutsout all unnecessaryetail. fyou are very ired, ou might ot evennotice hatthey re girls;you aremerely ware that here retwo otherpeople in the carriagewithyou. Later,you cannot remember hether heyweremen orwomen.The mindhas progressedurthern thedi-rection f abstraction.t retains noughsense oftime and place to steeryou back home,but theorder t mposes n theworld s nowof themostarbitraryind, fewbare inesof latitude nd lon-gitude.19Neisser, p.cit., ootnote7,pp. 286-89.20 Colin Wilson, Originsof the Sexual Impulse(London: Arthur arkerLtd., 1963), p. 66. Spatialability ecessary o human urvival oes not seemtorequire high rder f ntelligence.s thiswhyprofes-sionalgeographersook offended hen aypeopleex-pect themto knowwherethe cornerdrugstores?K. S. Lashleydiscussedn experimenty L. A. Pech-stein nwhich ats nd human ubjects earnedmazesof identical attern,nd inwhich herats showed orather oodadvantage.With imple noughhabits helower species, he feebleminded,nd the brain-dam-aged can learn boutas fast s a normal erson;K. S.Lashley, Learning:. NervousMechanismsn Learn-ing, n Carl Murchison,d., TheFoundations fEx-perimental sychologyWorcester:ClarkUniversityPress,1929), p. 535.



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1975 IMAGES AND MENTAL MAPS 213ENVOISocial scientistshow ncreasingnterestnmental henomena;hese an be very lusive.Behavioristsave reason o overlook hem.f

we are to study hementalworld escriptionsshould e full nd precise ather han ncap-sulatednmetaphoricalhorthand.erms ikeimage, icturesn the head, and mentalmaphave tended o becomevagueentitieshatdonotcorrespondo psychologicaleality. eta-phors aveheuristicalue fthey re not akenliterally.t cannot e assumed hat eoplewalkaboutwith icturesn the head,or thatpeo-ple's spatial ehaviors guided y picture-likeimages ndmentalmaps hat re ike ealmaps.The study f people's mentalworld n thecourse fdaily iving equires hatwe do notimpose n it the specialized ategoriesf theacademicndartisticrofessions.eographersrun herisk f seeingmaps n people'sheads,just s arthistoriansreperhapsnclinedoputundue mphasisn picture-images.Perceptions no longer novelty monggeographers.uchresearch as beendone nd

publishednrecent ears. t is inthenature fa -newield o venture utboldlywithoutoomuch oncern or he ppropriatenessfterms,the significancef concepts,nd logicalre-spectability. time omes,however, hennewfieldmust ause n tsflighto reconsiderthe oundness f tsfoundationndthekindsofquestionst asks.Perceptual eographyasreached uch stage.Aswe pause to examineconcepts ike magery nd schematawe maydiscover hatmental henomenaave nterestforus notonly s academic eographersutas ordinarilyurious uman eings. heir tudysuggestsnswerso questionshat ll thinkingpeople ask. How do we recognize laces andfind urway mong hem? reourmovementsguided ysomethingikepicturesn thehead?Whats the elationshipetweenerceptionndthe maginativeacultyhat nablesus to en-visage laceswe havenotdirectlyxperienced?How is itpossible o give treet irectionsoanother erson?How can thegeographyfstrangeandsbe taught?fthe uestionsoundnaive, tmay ebecause-like he luntueriesofprecocioushildren-theyre deep.

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Images and Mental MaImages and Mental Maps

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