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Understanding public perception of technology is crucial to aligning research, development, and governance of technology. This article introduces micro scenarios as an integrative method to evaluate mental models and social acceptance across numerous technologies and concepts using a few single-item scales within a single comprehensive survey. This approach contrasts with traditional methods that focus on detailed assessments of as few as one scenario. The data can be interpreted in two ways: Perspective (1): Average evaluations of each participant can be seen as individual differences, providing reflexive measurements across technologies or topics. This helps in understanding how perceptions of technology relate to other personality factors. Perspective (2): Average evaluations of each technology or topic can be interpreted as technology attributions. This makes it possible to position technologies on visuo-spatial maps to simplify identification of critical issues, conduct comparative rankings based on selected criteria, and to analyze the interplay between different attributions. This dual approach enables the modeling of acceptance-relevant factors that shape public opinion. It offers a framework for researchers, technology developers, and policymakers to identify pivotal factors for acceptance at both the individual and technology levels. I illustrate this methodology with examples from my research, provide practical guidelines, and include R code to enable others to conduct similar studies. This paper aims to bridge the gap between technological advancement and societal perception, offering a tool for more informed decision-making in technology development and policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orientation and mobility apps for visually impaired people are well known to be effective in improving the quality of life for this target group. A mobile application that guides a visually impaired person step-by-step through a physical space is a valuable aid, but it does not provide an overview of a complex environment "at a glance," as a traditional hard-copy tactile map does. The aim of this study is to investigate whether a smartphone GPS map, enriched with haptic and audio hints, can facilitate cognitive mapping for visually impaired users. Encouraged by a preliminary study conducted in co-operation with two visually impaired volunteers, we designed and developed an Android prototype for exploration of an urban area. Our goal was to provide an affordable, portable and versatile solution to help users increase awareness of an environment through the positions of its landmarks and points of interest. Vibro-tactile and audio hints were linked to the coordinates on the map via the GeoJSON data format and were issued exploiting the text-to-speech and vibration features of the mobile device, as they were displayed through the operating system's APIs. Test sessions and interviews with visually impaired users produced encouraging results. Results, to be verified by more extensive testing, overall confirm the validity of our approach and are in line with results found in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boundaries define space, impacting spatial memory and neural representations. Unlike rodents, impact in humans is often tested using desktop virtual-reality (VR). This lacks self-motion cues, diminishing path-integration input. We replicated a desktop-VR study testing boundary impact on spatial memory for object locations using a physical, desktop-VR, and head-mounted-display-VR environment. Performance was measured by comparing participant responses to seven spatial distribution models using geometric or walking-path metrics. A weighted-linear combination of geometric models and a "place-cell-firing" model performed best, with identical fits across environments. Spatial representation appears differentially influenced by different boundary changes, but similarly across virtual and physical environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Campus sustainability and climate change reduction have become a significant global concern for university administrators in recent days. Several evaluation systems of universities exist, and UI GreenMetric World University is one of the most used ranking one among them. The goal is to provide an image of current conditions relating to the green campus and sustainability of universities worldwide. The ranking system uses six main criteria and 39 sub-criteria and a numeric scoring system to evaluate universities. Unfortunately, collecting a numeric datum is not always easy for decision-makers. Decision-makers need a system using human judgments. For this aim, we proposed a new fuzzy ranking system based on a multi-stage decision-making model including DEMATEL, Cognitive maps, VIKOR, and Fuzzy inference systems. The proposed model uses 18 different criteria collected from UI GreenMetric World University ranking methodology. It captures the qualitative factors of the ranking system. To show the applicability of the method, we applied the proposed method to determine the universities' green index. The sensitivity analysis is also performed by changing decision-makers' weights. The results demonstrate that the proposed methodology is a useful and sensitive tool to calculate the green index of the universities with fuzzy linguistic expressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil servants have different levels of work engagement throughout their working lives. These variations are the work engagement cycles, which occur based on available resources and work environment demands. This study describes the work engagement cycles of federal civil servants based on their professional life histories, highlighting the demands and resources of the work environment in their professional trajectory. Using the job demands-resources (JD-R) model and the cognitive maps methodology, it was possible to identify a positive cycle of work engagement, a reinforcing cycle (related to opportunities and appreciation), and two disequilibrium cycles, one related to dysfunctional productivity and the other to administrative discontinuity. The analysis of the engagement cycles allowed the identification of work environment resources that interfere in the engagement of public servants in different ways. Finally, the concept of “coping cycle” was used as a subsidy of policies for disengaged servants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the interaction between hyper-video navigation tools (buttons, cognitive maps, and hot spots) and cognitive style (independent of cognitive field / dependent according to the cognitive field)' on the learning rate of the students at the Department of Education Technology. An experimental approach was used to compare six experimental groups (3*2). The research sample consisted of sixty sixth-grade students from the Department of Learning Techniques, College of Education, University of Jeddah. An embedded figure test (Embedded Figure Test) was used for elearning technology to determine who is independent of the cognitive field and who is dependent according to the cognitive field. The research sample was divided into six experimental groups, each with ten students. An electronic achievement test was created to measure the learning rate of students. The results showed that the buttons were the appropriate navigation tool for both the independents and the dependents in the cognitive field. That is because the buttons take into account the individual differences between the students, it was concluded that it is the most appropriate tool for roaming through the hyper-video. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociolinguistic is the discipline related with the aspects of the society that influence in the use of the language, as the cultural norms and the context in the speakers' environment. It studies the language like a system of signs in the social context. This paper has as main objective the design of a model for the study of this discipline according to the age of individuals, based on the cognitive fuzzy maps. Fuzzy cognitive maps are tools that allow us to represent the knowledge by means of the relationship of concepts, where for each relationship it is associated a weight in the interval [-1, 1] or [0, 1] that means the degree of each relationship among concepts, and moreover if this it is direct or inverse. The proposed model is an approach to the topic that will allow us carrying out predictions on possible scenarios, besides to spread and to share the results obtained by each one of the investigators interested in the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive maps are assumed to be fundamentally spatial and grounded only in perceptual processes, as supported by the discovery of functionally dedicated cell types in the human brain, which tile the environment in a maplike fashion. Challenging this view, we demonstrate that spatial representations—such as large-scale geographical maps—can be as well retrieved with high confidence from natural language through cognitively plausible artificial-intelligence models on the basis of nonspatial associative-learning mechanisms. More critically, we show that linguistic information accounts for the specific distortions observed in tasks when college-age adults have to judge the geographical positions of cities, even when these positions are estimated on real maps. These findings indicate that language experience can encode and reproduce cognitive maps without the need for a dedicated spatial-representation system, thus suggesting that the formation of these maps is the result of a strict interplay between spatial- and nonspatial-learning principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human life that is collective and diverse on the one hand, but complex and chaotic on the other, is largely experienced in metropolitan cities owing to a significant amount of migration. Istanbul can be defined as a city that constantly witnesses massive influxes of migration and ultimately becomes socially heterogeneous. It was hypothesized in this study that the multilayered urban character of the city affects the perceptions of city-dwellers, especially children. As such, the study focused on the perceptual differences of children living in socially diverse urban settings, and a comparative analysis was conducted to reveal the children's environmental perceptions regarding their nearby home environments. This case-study-oriented research was conducted with 11-year-old children from two subcommunities both located in the periphery of Istanbul: one from a gecekondu settlement on the fringes of Istanbul, and the other, a planned residential settlement (PRS). The methodology was based on the representations by the children since this methodology has the potential to present an understanding of spatial perception through both quantitative and qualitative dimensions. A representation of children's houses with their immediate surroundings was requested from the children so that two different cognitive map datasets were obtained regarding two diverse subcommunities. Significant results were obtained in the study, in which gender and settlement type were used as independent variables. As a result, it was revealed that the girls were more inclined to draw their own rooms, were more focused on indoor spaces and were further apt to draw the domestic appliances. When the results were evaluated depending on the settlement type variable, it was revealed that those living in PRS represented indoors more and were specifically focused on their own rooms, while those living in gecekondu settlement tended to draw domestic appliances and outdoor spaces more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the most valuable AI methods for modeling complicated things at the moment is the use of fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCMs). Conventional FCMs, on the other hand, can't handle the ambiguity that often arises in decision-making scenarios. A novel expansion of conventional FCMs called neutrosophic cognitive mapping (NCMs) was developed to address this shortcoming. However, the indeterminacy is not well handled by the NCMs stated in the citations since the level of indeterminacy is not quantified. In certain cases, choices should be seen as a series of steps that are only loosely related to one another. This occurs in project assessment when several activities depend on one another. Another difficult aspect of FCMs is that there isn't an appropriate topology for representing these types of decision-making difficulties. To aid in making decisions over several time periods, this research introduces a neutrosophic cognitive map built on triangular neutrosophic values (MS-TrNCM) for violence analysis. Through the use of triangular neutrosophic numbers, the suggested model allows experts to express their choices while considering various extents of truth, indeterminacy, and falsity in the underlying map linkages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous findings show that rats in a maze tend to choose the shortest path to reach food. But it is not clear whether this choice is based on path length solely, or some other factors. The aim of this experiment was to investigate which factor dominates the behavior in a maze: path (longer and shorter), time (longer and shorter), or effort (more or less strenuous). The experiment involved 40 mice (4 groups), learning a maze with two paths. Each group went through only one of the situations within which we kept one factor constant on two paths while the remaining two factors were varied. Only in the fourth situation all factors were equalized. The results show that there is a statistically significant difference in the maze path preference between four situations. Preference between the paths is such that mice always choose paths requiring less effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Swidden smallholders are among the most vulnerable groups to climate change. Many efforts have focused on incentivizing their transition to agroforestry, often with limited results. Such transitions, embedded in complex socio-environmental changes, generate uncertainties, often ignored in the science-policy interface. In this paper, we examine dispersed disciplinary developments in decision-making under uncertainty, apply the insights to a case study, and discuss results in the context of prevalent knowledge production assumptions and incentivized livelihood transitions policies. We use interview data from three communities in the Mexican Maya region to create aggregated mental models of smallholders who adopted agroforestry, and those who continue to practice traditional swidden agriculture. The mental models depict perceived causal connections—including uncertain or delayed—between hazards, causes, consequences and responses. Our results show substantial differences in mental models driven by length of explanatory pathways, attribution of hazards and portfolios of responses, suggesting that agroforesters were more prone to proactive behavior and/or more responsive to outside discourses. Agroforestry is effective in reducing some uncertainties in its bundled approach, but new uncertainties for which smallholders have no prior experience arise. Contrastingly, recurrent themes point to lower self-efficacy in swidden smallholders, which may help explain non-adoption. We caution that not recognizing differences in mental models among potential beneficiaries of incentivized interventions may inadvertently exacerbate inequalities, while unaddressed uncertainties may lead to future disadoption. As a scientific tool, mental model mapping can inform the design of adaptation measures by identifying new knowledge and conflicting rationales, and segmenting strategies for potential (non)adopters. • Swidden and agroforestry mental models differ in size, perceived causes, and responses. • Differences in mental models may be due to learning or self-selection. • Adaptation decisions involve various sources of uncertainty with nuanced group-specific patterns. • There is evidence that responses reflect trade-offs in which uncertainty sources are faced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how reports concerning a given country's prospects affect investment decisions in two stylized, artificial organizational settings. We designed a role-game laboratory experiment, where subjects were asked to make investment decisions for two types of fictitious companies from the same country. We found that when available reports included positive country prospects, subjects strategized more on investments regardless of the characteristics of their organization. When reports included negative prospects, however, certain organizational peculiarities influenced the subjects' interpretations, with decision-makers opting for more prudent plans when managing a more traditional company. Cognitive maps of decision makers showed that subjects considered investment strategies as a means to fulfil a company's role expectations regarding appropriate decisions. Notwithstanding all caveats due to the artificial and simplified nature of our experimental setting, our findings indicate the need for more research on the effect of reports and prospect analysis on strategic decisions of companies, especially when business prospects are uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hippocampal formation (HF) is a structure critical to navigation and many forms of memory. In mammals, the firing of place cells is widely regarded as the fundamental unit of HF information processing. Supporting homology between the avian and mammalian HF, context-specific patterns of Egr1 have been reported in birds that are comparable to those produced by place cell firing in mammals. Recent electrophysiological data, however, suggest that many avian species lack place cells, potentially undermining the correspondence between Egr1 and place cell-related firing in the avian brain. To clarify this, the current study examines Egr1 expression in Japanese quail under conditions known to elicit only weakly spatially modulated firing patterns and report robust context-dependent Egr1 expression. These data confirm that context-dependent expression of Egr1 is not dependent on precise place fields and provide insight into how these birds are able to perform complex spatial tasks despite lacking mammalian-like place cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we navigate the world, we use learned representations of relational structures to explore and to reach goals. Studies of how relational knowledge enables inference and planning are typically conducted in controlled small-scale settings. It remains unclear, however, how people use stored knowledge in continuously unfolding navigation (e.g., walking long distances in a city). We hypothesized that multiscale predictive representations guide naturalistic navigation in humans, and these scales are organized along posterior-anterior prefrontal and hippocampal hierarchies. We conducted model-based representational similarity analyses of neuroimaging data collected while male and female participants navigated realistically long paths in virtual reality. We tested the pattern similarity of each point, along each path, to a weighted sum of its successor points within predictive horizons of different scales. We found that anterior PFC showed the largest predictive horizons, posterior hippocampus the smallest, with the anterior hippocampus and orbitofrontal regions in between. Our findings offer novel insights into how cognitive maps support hierarchical planning at multiple scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The functional role of the entorhinal-hippocampal system has been a long withstanding mystery. One key theory that has become most popular is that the entorhinal-hippocampal system represents space to facilitate navigation in one's surroundings. In this Perspective article, I introduce a novel idea that undermines the inherent uniqueness of spatial information in favor of time driving entorhinal-hippocampal activity. Specifically, by spatializing events that occur in succession (i.e., across time), the entorhinal-hippocampal system is critical for all types of cognitive representations. I back up this argument with empirical evidence that hints at a role for the entorhinal-hippocampal system in non-spatial representation, and computational models of the logarithmic compression of time in the brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Licensed London taxi drivers have been found to show changes in the gray matter density of their hippocampus over the course of training and decades of navigation in London (UK). This has been linked to their learning and using of the "Knowledge of London," the names and layout of over 26,000 streets and thousands of points of interest in London. Here we review past behavioral and neuroimaging studies of London taxi drivers, covering the structural differences in hippocampal gray matter density and brain dynamics associated with navigating London. We examine the process by which they learn the layout of London, detailing the key learning steps: systematic study of maps, travel on selected overlapping routes, the mental visualization of places and the optimal use of subgoals. Our analysis provides the first map of the street network covered by the routes used to learn the network, allowing insight into where there are gaps in this network. The methods described could be widely applied to aid spatial learning in the general population and may provide insights for artificial intelligence systems to efficiently learn new environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an increasingly globalised and technology-driven world, cognitive tools have proven extremely successful in learning. As far as English language learning is concerned, cognitive mapping techniques can facilitate comprehension, encourage critical thinking and help learners to retain information. This work is aimed at showing how cognitive mapping techniques can be applied to English language teaching at university by focusing on the potential benefits of using several cognitive maps to teach both English grammar or general English (GE) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). These maps can be seen as potentially successful ways of representing complex and/or dense information and, as such, they are recognised as valuable educational and visualisation tools, which assist students in organising, sharing and representing knowledge. The aim of this work is to evaluate whether the use of cognitive maps can help to improve the quality of English language teaching at University. This paper provides a case study of an English course taught to Italian university students of dentistry in their first year and highly significant differences were found and evaluated between the control group and the experimental group. This experimental study represents part of a larger, ongoing research project on the validity and feasibility of using cognitive mapping techniques as a means of enhancing students' English language learning and information retention and recall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of why our conceptions of space and time are intertwined with memory in the hippocampal formation is at the forefront of much current theorizing about this brain system. In this article I argue that animals bridge spatial and temporal gaps through the creation of internal models that allow them to act on the basis of things that exist in a distant place and/or existed at a different time. The hippocampal formation plays a critical role in these processes by stitching together spatiotemporally disparate entities and events. It does this by 1) constructing cognitive maps that represent extended spatial contexts, incorporating and linking aspects of an environment that may never have been experienced together; 2) creating neural trajectories that link the parts of an event, whether they occur in close temporal proximity or not, enabling the construction of event representations even when elements of that event were experienced at quite different times; and 3) using these maps and trajectories to simulate possible futures. As a function of these hippocampally driven processes, our subjective sense of both space and time are interwoven constructions of the mind, much as the philosopher Immanuel Kant postulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental models influence how individuals think and act in relation to their external environment and have been identified as leverage points to address sustainability challenges. Given the importance of mental models, a new tool to assess mental models has been developed: the Mental Model Mapping Tool (M-Tool). M-Tool was designed to have a standardized format and to be user-friendly for low literacy populations, using pictograms and audio instructions. In this paper, we evaluate M-Tool's application in two studies with Tanzanian fishers. In Study 1, we investigated M-tool's convergent validity compared to standard interviewing methods (n = 30). Study 2 investigated M-Tool's construct validity by relating mental model complexity to participants' education level (n = 185), a relationship that has been well established. The findings show that (1) mental models produced with M-Tool are more complex than mental models obtained through interviewing techniques; (2) model composition is similar across the two methods; and (3) participants with higher levels of education tend to produce more complex mental models with M-Tool than participants with lower levels of education, in line with previous research. These findings suggest that M-Tool can successfully capture mental models among diverse participants. This tool offers researchers and practitioners an instrument to map and compare perceptions of (conservation) challenges across groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to navigate a complex web of relationships, an individual must learn and represent the connections between people in a social network. However, the sheer size and complexity of the social world makes it impossible to acquire firsthand knowledge of all relations within a network, suggesting that people must make inferences about unobserved relationships to fill in the gaps. Across three studies (n = 328), we show that people can encode information about social features (e.g., hobbies, clubs) and subsequently deploy this knowledge to infer the existence of unobserved friendships in the network. Using computational models, we test various feature-based mechanisms that could support such inferences. We find that people's ability to successfully generalize depends on two representational strategies: a simple but inflexible similarity heuristic that leverages homophily, and a complex but flexible cognitive map that encodes the statistical relationships between social features and friendships. Together, our studies reveal that people can build cognitive maps encoding arbitrary patterns of latent relations in many abstract feature spaces, allowing social networks to be represented in a flexible format. Moreover, these findings shed light on open questions across disciplines about how people learn and represent social networks and may have implications for generating more human-like link prediction in machine learning algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Spatial navigation is a core function of olfaction in many species. • Olfactory search strategies have become more sophisticated across evolution. • This change is accompanied by the development of more complex neural mechanisms. • Even in mammalian species, odor cues contribute significantly to wayfinding. • We discuss the relevance of these insights for human olfactory navigation. Olfaction is arguably the least valued among our sensory systems, and its significance for human behavior is often neglected. Spatial navigation represents no exception to the rule: humans are often characterized as purely visual navigators, a view that undermines the contribution of olfactory cues. Accordingly, research investigating whether and how humans use olfaction to navigate space is rare. In comparison, research on olfactory navigation in non-human species is abundant, and identifies behavioral strategies along with neural mechanisms characterizing the use of olfactory cues during spatial tasks. Using an ethological approach, our review draws from studies on olfactory navigation across species to describe the adaptation of strategies under the influence of selective pressure. Mammals interact with spatial environments by abstracting multisensory information into cognitive maps. We thus argue that olfactory cues, alongside inputs from other sensory modalities, play a crucial role in spatial navigation for mammalian species, including humans; that is, odors constitute one of the many building blocks in the formation of cognitive maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to domestic markets' current economic conditions, companies increasingly feel that they need to become actively involved in international trade. However, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) typically face financial and intellectual constraints during internationalization processes. This means that decision makers must consider a wide range of different variables before deciding to internationalize firms. This study sought to integrate a well-established problem structuring method (i.e., cognitive mapping) and a multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) technique (i.e., Decision EXpert (DEX)) in order to develop a decision model suitable for the identification and assessment of variables influencing SME internationalization capability. Using data collected during face-to-face meetings with a panel of experts (i.e., SME entrepreneurs and chief executive officers (CEOs)), a constructivist method of evaluating SME internationalization capability was created and tested using real data. The results confirm that the dual methodology adopted facilitates the development of a robust evaluation model that can improve decisionmaking processes in the context in question. Specifically, the proposed model identifies product features as the most important factor in SME capability for successful internationalization. In addition, internal factors are significantly more relevant than external factors. The integrated use of cognitive mapping and DEX provides decision makers with a well-informed perspective on SME internationalization capability. We know of no prior research reporting the use of these two methodologies in the SME internationalization context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Understanding complex systems is essential to ensure their conservation and effective management. Models commonly support understanding of complex ecological systems and, by extension, their conservation. Modeling, however, is largely a social process constrained by individuals' mental models (i.e., a small‐scale internal model of how a part of the world works based on knowledge, experience, values, beliefs, and assumptions) and system complexity. To account for both system complexity and the diversity of knowledge of complex systems, we devised a novel way to develop a shared qualitative complex system model. We disaggregated a system (carbonate coral reefs) into smaller subsystem modules that each represented a functioning unit, about which an individual is likely to have more comprehensive knowledge. This modular approach allowed us to elicit an individual mental model of a defined subsystem for which the individuals had a higher level of confidence in their knowledge of the relationships between variables. The challenge then was to bring these subsystem models together to form a complete, shared model of the entire system, which we attempted through 4 phases: develop the system framework and subsystem modules; develop the individual mental model elicitation methods; elicit the mental models; and identify and isolate differences for exploration and identify similarities to cocreate a shared qualitative model. The shared qualitative model provides opportunities to develop a quantitative model to understand and predict complex system change. Article Impact Statement: Integration of knowledge sets across disciplines improves understanding and conservation of complex systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research endeavors to study and determine the influence of cognitive maps on production of political manifestos discourse. The research has been conducted in the framework of Sociocognitive Discourse Studies. The results show that discourse cognitive structure of British Conservative Party and Australian Liberal Party manifestos is characterized by different sets of cognitive maps on the level of communicative strategies and somewhat similar sets of cognitive schemas on the level of communicative tactics. Applying the method of interpropositional semantic analysis, the communicative strategy and communicative tactic of comparison was identified in Australian Liberal Party manifesto. Despite the close affinity between political discourses of the UK and Australia, there are significant differences in patterns of information organization in online manifestos of the ruling parties to engage the community and enhance persuasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of a cognitive map has been borrowed from psychology by literary scholars to denote the mental representation of the spatial layout of (a) storyworld(s). The classic Chinese novel 紅樓夢 Hongloumeng 'The Story of the Stone' (also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber) is particularly well-known for its topographic representation of a storyworld of self-contained totality and detailed veracity. Using David Hawkes's English translation of the novel and various materials from his notebooks, this article demonstrates the translator's (mental) cartographic effort to conjure up 'maps in mind' in response to the textual spatial cues. I argue that Hawkes's cognitive maps offer explanations to some translational performances that have been too readily glossed over as insignificant. The article also aims to chart a new path forward for systematic investigation into the significance of the translator's imaginative participation in 'the world inside the text', for the sake of an enriched understanding of translation, both as a product and a process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ontology datasets, which encode the expert-defined complex objects mapping the entities, relations, and structures of a domain ontology, are increasingly being integrated into the performance of challenging knowledge-based tasks. Yet, it is hard to use ontology data sets within our tasks without first understanding the ontology which it describes. Using visual representation and interaction design, interactive visualization tools can help us learn and develop our understanding of unfamiliar ontologies. After a review of existing tools which visualize ontology datasets, we find that current design practices struggle to support learning tasks when attempting to build understanding of the ontological spaces within ontology datasets. During encounters with unfamiliar spaces, our cognitive processes align with the theoretical framework of cognitive map formation. Furthermore, designing encounters to promote cognitive map formation can improve our performance during learning tasks. In this paper, we examine related work on cognitive load, cognitive map formation, and the use of interactive visualizations during learning tasks. From these findings, we formalize a set of high-level design criteria for visualizing ontology datasets to promote cognitive map formation during learning tasks. We then perform a review of existing tools which visualize ontology datasets and assess their interface design towards their alignment with the cognitive map framework. We then present PRONTOVISE (PRogressive ONTOlogy VISualization Explorer), an interactive visualization tool which applies the high-level criteria within its design. We perform a task-based usage scenario to illustrate the design of PRONTOVISE. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of PRONTOVISE and its use of the criteria towards the design of interactive visualization tools which help us develop understanding of the ontological space within ontology datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental maps and historical consciousness, which describe the spatial and temporal dimensions of worldviews, are not, as commonly stated, twentieth century concepts. Historical consciousness was coined simultaneously by several German scholars in the mid-1800s. Mental maps, used in English since the 1820s, had a prominent role in US geography education from the 1880s. Since then, the concepts have traveled between practical-technical, educational, and academic vocabularies, cross fertilizing fields and contributing to the formation of new research questions. However, when these initial periods of reflection gave way to empirical investigation, strict intra-disciplinary definitions of the concepts have strengthened disciplinary borders by excluding the interpretations of the same concepts in other fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes an application of cognitive maps in the representation of cognitive structures of the experts and assessment of their development/modification as a result of a (computer or expert system-assisted) learning process. It strives to identify information needed for the guidance of the process of creation and management of expert knowledge by formal modeling tools. Changes in experts' cognitive structures are assumed to stem from individual and collaborative (group-level) learning. The novel approach to assessing the outcomes of learning reflected as changes in the cognitive structures of experts or groups of experts, modeled by cognitive maps, does not assume any correct or desired outcome of the learning process to be known in advance. Instead, it identifies and analyzes the changes in (or robustness of) the constituents of the cognitive maps from different points of view and allows for quantifying and visualizing the actual effect of the learning. The proposed methodology can identify changes in cognitive diversity, causal structures in terms of causal relations and concepts, and the perceived importance of strategic issues over the learning period. It can also detect which cause–effect relationships have appeared/disappeared considering the pre-/post-mapping design. Thus, it provides an exploratory account on the changes in the cognitive structures of the expert(s) as a result of learning. The applicability of the proposed methods is illustrated in the assessment of the learning outcomes of a group of 71 graduate students who participated in an eight-week business simulation task. The results of the empirical analysis confirm the viability of the proposed methodology and indicate that the students' understanding of the utilized concepts and associated relationships in the decision-making process improved throughout the learning activity, ultimately showing that the course learning has considerably improved students' perception and knowledge. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the proposed approach has the potential to be effective in assessing learning outcomes in teaching–learning activities. • Technique for unsupervised assessment of expert knowledge development is proposed. • Causal maps represent current state of expert knowledge in different time points. • Desirability of learning (defined as changes in cognitive maps) is assessed ex-post. • Proposed tools enable quantification and visualization of the effects of learning. • Practical use of the tools in expert knowledge creation and management is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental models and cognitive maps have been used in college business education as an instructional design technique, assessment tool, and learning strategy. The authors propose a novel use of mental models and cognitive maps as a device to elicit students' challenges in learning the domain knowledge of a course. Such usage is illustrated in a management information systems course. This student-focused approach can help instructor to better understand students' learning challenges and enhance teaching effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Equitable human well-being and environmental concerns in urban areas have, over the years, become increasingly challenging issues. This trend is related to both the complexity inherent in the multiple factors to be considered when evaluating eco-friendly cities (i.e. , green cities) and the way this type of city's sustainability depends on many evaluation criteria, which hampers all decision-making processes. Using a multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) approach, this study sought to develop a multiple-criteria model that facilitates the evaluation of green cities' sustainability, based on cognitive mapping techniques and the Choquet integral (CI). Taking a constructivist and process-oriented stance, the research included identifying evaluation criteria and their respective interactions using a panel of experts with specialized knowledge in the subject under analysis. The resulting framework and its application were validated both by the panel members and a parliamentary representative of the Portuguese ecology party "Os Verdes" (The Greens), who confirmed that the evaluation system created distinguishes between cities according to how strongly they adhere to "green" principles. The advantages and limitations of the proposed framework are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Credit to personal consumption is an important activity of the financial system and crucial to the socioeconomic development of a country. It is important, therefore, that the methods and techniques used to evaluate consumer credit risk be as efficient and informative as possible, in order to strengthen decisions to approve or reject credit and promote sustainable economic growth. This study aims to create a multiple criteria expert system which integrates cognitive maps and the measuring attractiveness by a categorical-based evaluation technique (MACBETH) to create a complementary framework for consumer credit risk assessment. The results show that this integrated approach allows the evaluation process of consumer credit risk to be more informed and transparent, providing value for the evaluation processes of this type of credit application as a result of the privileged contact established with a panel of credit analysts. Advantages, limitations, and managerial implications are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans can navigate flexibly to meet their goals. Here, we asked how the neural representation of allocentric space is distorted by goal-directed behavior. Participants navigated an agent to two successive goal locations in a grid world environment comprising four interlinked rooms, with a contextual cue indicating the conditional dependence of one goal location on another. Examining the neural geometry by which room and context were encoded in fMRI signals, we found that map-like representations of the environment emerged in both hippocampus and neocortex. Cognitive maps in hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortices were compressed so that locations cued as goals were coded together in neural state space, and these distortions predicted successful learning. This effect was captured by a computational model in which current and prospective locations are jointly encoded in a place code, providing a theory of how goals warp the neural representation of space in macroscopic neural signals. • Humans achieved context-dependent navigation, taking multiple steps to reach a final goal • Goals induced compression of spatial maps in the hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortices • Compression tracked performance and emerged only with full knowledge of goal locations • Captured by a place cell model that jointly encodes current and prospective locations How do goals affect the representation of space? Muhle-Karbe et al. show that spatial maps in the hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex are "compressed" during goal-directed navigation with goals that share a prospective pathway clustering together in representational space, as if participants were simultaneously imagining themselves at current and goal locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human reasoning depends on reusing pieces of information by putting them together in new ways. However, very little is known about how compositional computation is implemented in the brain. Here, we ask participants to solve a series of problems that each require constructing a whole from a set of elements. With fMRI, we find that representations of novel constructed objects in the frontal cortex and hippocampus are relational and compositional. With MEG, we find that replay assembles elements into compounds, with each replay sequence constituting a hypothesis about a possible configuration of elements. The content of sequences evolves as participants solve each puzzle, progressing from predictable to uncertain elements and gradually converging on the correct configuration. Together, these results suggest a computational bridge between apparently distinct functions of hippocampal-prefrontal circuitry and a role for generative replay in compositional inference and hypothesis testing. [Display omitted] • Human replay underlies ongoing inference about the composition of a stimulus • Human replay becomes gradually refined to reflect the correct composition • Representations of novel stimuli are relational and compositional • These representations are found in human hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex Generative neural replay underlies ongoing inference about the composition of a stimulus, resembling a hypothesis testing process. Relational and compositional representations in the hippocampal-prefrontal circuit underpinning such flexible inference generalize to novel and previously unseen problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Map-making has played a crucial role in the politics of bordering and ordering. Irregular migrants challenge these politics of confinement on a regular basis; despite this, or perhaps precisely because of it, their stories are hidden in state-centric discourses. Through a counter-mapping approach, this paper focuses on our understanding of how irregular migrants experience their journey. Specifically, an analysis of cognitive maps created by Central American irregular migrants in transit through Mexico on their journey to the US is presented. The strength of this approach is that it highlights the scenarios and practices veiled by the macronarratives of the securitisation of migration. At the same time, it underscores the fact that for irregular transmigrants border control is widespread through their entire journey, thus challenging the border’s notion of fixity. This paper aims to contribute to methodologies used in the study of mobilities and to the broader understanding of how bordering processes are lived and defied by migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing quality of life (QoL) in urban areas is considered a difficult endeavor. Some of the main reasons for this difficulty are directly related to the complexity inherent in the multiplicity of criteria that must be considered in such an evaluation, as well as the subjectivity intrinsic to the issue under study. This complexity hinders the development of models capable of reflecting the performance of different urban environments in terms of their QoL. This study sought to overcome some of the more common limitations of current evaluation methods, by combining cognitive mapping and the measuring attractiveness by a categorical based evaluation technique (MACBETH), to develop a more informed, coherent and transparent evaluation system. The resulting framework and its application were validated both by the participating panel of experts and a representative of the parliamentary group of the Portuguese ecologist party “The Greens”. The advantages and limitations of our framework are also subject of analysis and discussion. It is worth noting that the whole process assumes a constructivist stance, allowing both objective and subjective elements to be combined in the decision-making framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposal that humans can develop cognitive maps of their environment has a long and controversial history. We suggest an individual-differences approach to this question instead of a normative one. Specifically, there is evidence that some people derive flexible maplike representations from information acquired during navigation, whereas others store much less accurate information. Our research uses a virtual-reality paradigm in which two routes are learned and must be related to each other. It defines three groups: integrators, nonintegrators, and imprecise navigators. These groups show distinctive patterns of spatial skills and working memory, as well as personality. We contrast our approach with research challenging the cognitive-map hypothesis and offer directions for rapprochement between the two views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper presents a new mixed methods approach which allows researchers to scan industry sectors for institutional change periods and to locate periods of significant institutional change agency.Design/methodology/approach The approach is grounded on the institutional logics perspective and on institutional entrepreneurship theory and combines an automated quantitative content analysis with a cognitive mapping exercise.Findings The paper describes the development of this approach and its application to the urban water management sector of Australia. Three periods of significant institutional change agency are identified, described and discussed.Originality/value The paper puts forward a new methodological approach that enables a robust and objective identification of actor-driven institutional change periods which can be used as a precursor for more targeted qualitative inquiries into institutional change research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Topographical disorientation, the inability to orient in a well-known environment, is a very incapacitating syndrome. Despite its relatively high frequency after a right cerebral lesion, there is currently no specific neuropsychological test to assess it. We propose a completely new test, with preliminary normative data, assessing the subjects' ability to recall allocentric spatial information from their cognitive map. The subjects are asked to mentally compare distances and directions between landmarks in their familiar environment. This necessitates creating an individual version of the test tailored to every participant's knowledge. This task was proposed to 53 patients with a right lesion and a control group (N = 133). We evaluated performance at comparing distances and directions, and the impact of sociodemographic variables (age, gender, and education). Results show that a right cerebral lesion leads to difficulties in evoking and comparing allocentric spatial information, and more specifically in judging directions. Furthermore, the results show an impact of age, but not gender nor education, on recalling information from a cognitive map. Although there are some intrinsic difficulties (for example in creating patient-specific versions of the test), preliminary normative data indicate that this original test is workable and provides important information in assessing topographical disorientation in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upgrades are a common experience for people who use technology for any length of time. Upgrades may bring clear benefits, and some users look forward to new versions of software. However for others, upgrades may be a burden. Upgrades bring costs, imposing a need to refamiliarize ourselves with a new version after mastering the old one. It is important to understand such costs as failure to upgrade can make users vulnerable to security risks. We first review multiple studies showing users' dislike of upgrades resulting from changes introduced to the interface. Then we propose a framework to analyze the nature of upgrade costs, explaining their origins using well-validated cognitive psychology concepts including: cognitive automation, negative transfer, cognitive maps, procedural memory and locus of control. We use these concepts to explain the psychological costs of frequent interface changes while sketching some approaches to addressing them. Although new versions are necessary for progress, this paper provides software developers with a deeper understanding of the sometimes overlooked costs of frequent interface changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial dimension of daily mobility depends on where people choose to perform their daily activities in urban environments. This study explores the influence of multiple geographical scales, characterising metropolitan regions on the cognitive images of individuals, whose daily mobility is restricted by an interurban daily commute to a university campus in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona. To do so, a sample of 28 adults from the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (RMB) were asked to describe perceived activity spaces using a combination of SoftGIS technology and interviews. Results have shown that different individuals can perceive the same geographic context in several manners, differentiating their utilised space between spatial continuums, fragmented territories or overlaid territories. Furthermore, factors such as the different spatial scales that affect a territory, the morphological characteristics of residential areas or the transport infrastructures, have proven to influence cognitive maps of individuals. Finally, different methods utilised for the exploration of cognitive maps have provided variations in the resulting cognitive images of participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choosing a tenant is a key issue in the housing rental market. Knowing, a priori, whether a tenant will pay the rent on time, be able to hold a good relationship with the neighbors or take care of the property (i.e. whether s/he will be a "good" tenant) is not a simple endeavor. It is crucial, however, as it can help save time, money and conflicts that can end up in court. This study aims to address this issue, through the integrated use of cognitive maps and the Decision EXpert (DEX) technique. Grounded on a constructivist logic, the study brought together a panel of experts with experience and knowledge in the residential rental market, in order to identify and articulate the criteria to be taken into account in the classification and selection of tenants. The results achieved show that the integration of these two methodologies (i.e. cognitive maps and DEX) can help increase our understanding of the decision problem at hand, and lead to more informed and potentially better tenant choices. Advantages and limitations of the framework are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies on spatial cognition have rarely adopted a behaviorally objective approach for survey representations that may capture the Euclidean qualities of configurations. The current study integrates subjectively conventional coding and a recently developed objective Gardony Map Drawing Analyzer (GMDA) technique to link landmark and survey representations. The combined approach is able to present a more complete story. Participants were instructed to tour a real aquatic environment, which provided more ecologically valid results. Conventional analysis results revealed that the top two most commonly recalled and located landscape categories were lakes and a cascade due to their embedded sociopsychological meanings and physical salience. GMDA results provided quantitative measures regarding configurational outputs, angle accuracy, and distance accuracy. Based on these results, relative contributions of different measures to spatial knowledge were identified using the k-means method. From the two approaches, the results indicated that participants who were better at landmark recall led to a better global perspective of the research site. The study also points out that missing landmarks, which involve participants' loss of components in response to the target environment map, play critical roles in understanding configurations. In addition, directional information is more important than distance information in constructing spatial representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Involving all interest groups, often called stakeholders, is increasingly recognized as a key part of sustainable natural resource management, promoting acceptability and compliance with management decisions. However, there is the difficulty of how to build trust, integrate diverse knowledge bases and account for varying objectives of different stakeholders. We present insights from a fisheries stakeholder process that used structured decision making and participatory modelling in a workshop series over the course of three years to develop management advice for a northern pike (Esox lucius) meta-population inhibiting brackish lagoons of the southern Baltic Sea in Germany. The stock is co-exploited by commercial and recreational fisheries who are in conflict over space and fish and vary in values. We formed and professionally facilitated a stakeholder group composed of 15 representatives of all main interest groups. The workshops generated a shared vision and seven mutually agreed management objectives that combined aspects of biological, ecological, economic, and social sustainability. To meet objectives, the group identified more than 40 management options, revolving around stock monitoring, control and surveillance, knowledge transfer, harvest regulations, habitat management, predator control and pike stocking. Participatory model building provided forecasts on the impacts of selected management options, allowing to transparently examine trade-offs based on quantitative criteria matched to objectives. The process overall led to stakeholder consensus about multiple management tools that the group recommended to government officials for future management reform. Challenges remain as to the communication of irreducible ecological and social uncertainties associated with quantitative predictions. In this context, cognitive maps about cause-and-effect relationships affecting pike were found useful to integrate knowledge and remind about uncertainties. Our case study shows that stakeholder-inclusive approaches using structured decision making and participatory modelling with professional facilitation are time- and planning-intensive, but can promote common system understanding and development of mutually agreed management advice also in heterogeneous stakeholder groups that are often in severe conflict with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Helping blind people to build cognitive maps of an environment is one of the aims of several assistive systems. In order to evaluate such assistive technologies during the development process, users are often asked to externalize their cognitive maps. Using appropriate methods is of considerable importance for externalizing cognitive maps for blind people and sighted people. In this paper, two externalization methods, reconstruction with magnetic bars and verbal description, were investigated with blind people and sighted people. The investigation focused on the three issues: (1) the applicability of the two methods in terms of different knowledge levels; (2) the effect of sensory inputs (e.g. tactile, audio and audio-tactile) for externalizing cognitive maps by blind people; and (3) the ability of the two methods for blind and sighted people. Experimental results by ten blind and ten sighted subjects show reconstruction with magnetic bars is suitable independent of knowledge levels and sensory inputs. Verbal description is suitable in terms of route knowledge if sensory inputs are tactile-only and audio-tactile-based methods. Future studies about how to help blind people externalize route and landmark knowledge when the audio-proprioceptive input is provided should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fundamental bases of how our brain solves different tasks of object manipulation remain largely unknown. Here we consider the problem of the limb movement in dynamic situations on an abstract cognitive level and propose a novel approach relying on: i) transformation of the problem from the limb workspace to the so-called hand-space, and ii) construction of a generalized cognitive map (GCM) in the hand-space. The GCM provides a trajectory that can be followed by the limb, which ensures an efficient collision-free movement and target catching in the workspace. Our numerical simulations confirm the approach feasibility but also reveal the problem complexity. We then validate the GCM-based solutions in real-life scenarios. We show that a GCM-equipped humanoid robot can catch a fly ball in a similar way as a human subject does. The static nature of the GCMs enables learning and automation of sophisticated cognitive behaviors exhibited by humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]