5.2.3 Cognitive maps

Examining the composite sketch maps – done as homework by the two teams of four – reveals an interesting difference in learning modalities.  Of all the teams who had participated in either the pilot or main studies of this intervention, Xin Ni, Genevieve, Yvonne and Amanda were the only team who chose to represent the orienteering route in a purely textual format, as seen in Figure 14.  In contrast, the sketch produced by Aaron, Sherman, Kaushik and Arvind is more conventionally represented and is in Figure 15.  The given checkpoints were ‘525’, ‘track’, ‘RC’, ‘post box’, ‘playground’, ‘hump’, ‘no football’, ‘fence’, ‘shelter’, ‘gate’, ‘Xiao Guilin’, ‘meeting point’, ‘trash bin’, ‘Bukit Gombak trail’ and ‘carpark’.

A comparison of Figures 14 and 15 reveals that by choosing to represent the route entirely through text, Xin Ni, Genevieve, Yvonne and Amanda were not able – or chose not – to record certain icons and symbols in the environment (such as the symbolic representation of a housing block and the icon of the logo of the Residents’ Committee) which Aaron, Sherman, Kaushik and Arvind chose to.  This preference for text-based communication is corroborated by revisiting the messaging exchange which transpired between Xin Ni, Genevieve, Yvonne and Amanda.  Yvonne and Amanda sent only one picture-message during the 76 minutes of the activity (at time index 1550), and while Xin Ni and Genevieve did send pictures, they did so in conjunction with the same landmarks (such as the playground and sheltered walkway) being mentioned in text-messages.

On the other hand, both Aaron and Sherman, and Kaushik and Arvind, used pictures in lieu of mentioning certain checkpoints (such as the MRT track, the Residents’ Committee and the post box) through text.  Aaron, Sherman, Kaushik and Arvind thus seemed to be comfortable communicating through pictures, and (as at time index 1504) they only curtailed their sending of picture-messages because of the time-lags.

It should also be noted that there are route details which are captured in Figure 14 which are absent in Figure 15.  Examples of these include the instruction not to cross at the crossing (but simply to turn right at it) and the five stone steps between the trash bin and the ‘Bukit Gombak trail’ signboard. In this way, although Figure 15 might first appear to be the more ostensibly ‘geographical’ of the two ‘sketch maps’, it might also be argued that Figure 14 contains just as much, if not more, geographical detail, although it is represented in a non-spatial way.

These sketch maps can be compared against a satellite image of the same area (Figure 17, intentionally reproduced ‘upside-down’ in order to better fit the orientation of the participant-authored sketch maps). Figure 14, because it is essentially a list of checkpoints and landmarks in sequence, emphasizes the perceived distance between the start and end points, rather than spatial accuracy (such as scalar or angular accuracy).  It can be seen therefore that although it would initially appear that Figures 14 and 15 have nothing in common (apart from certain checkpoints), they are actually quite similar in concept, if not in execution.

<- 5.2.2 Orienteering task          -> 5.2.4 Perspectives task