The recognition for the conception of this phrase is accredited to Edward Tolman (1948). Cognitive maps have been examined in numerous fields, such as conspiracy theories, management, urban planning, psychology, education, archaeology, planning, geography, cartography, architecture, and landscape architecture (Knight, 2002). As an aftereffect, these mental models are often referred to as frames of reference, mental maps, schemata, scripts and cognitive maps.
Imagery and cognitive mapping and their common applications Imagery includes the visualization that occurs while reading a book and daydreaming. When a student reads a book, he or she can sometimes "see" the story in their head. Being able to visualize an image in our minds can be illustrated as being under various degrees of conscious control, so it can be a voluntary (Sachs, 2007).
According to Steven Pinker (1999), cognitive scientist and psychologist, our experiences of the environment are represented in our minds as imagery. This imagery can then be compared and associated with others, and can be used to create entirely new images. In this view, mental images allow us to form useful theories of how the world works by formulating likely sequences of imagery in our minds without having to gone through that event. Koslyn (1975) developed another model that includes spatial relations in representations. He considers representations and spatial relations as necessary to all imaginary and how it relates to other parts of all.
Mental representations of physical locations are called cognitive maps. Animals and humans use cognitive maps to help them to find their way and to help remember important features of the world. The term was inroduced by psychologist Tolman (1948) to justify how rats to be trained rewards in a maze were located. A cognitive map gave the rat with a helpful example of the environment. Excluding all irrelevant and unimportant information from the mental map. Thus, cognitive maps can be very different from an actual place. The differences between the physical characteristics and mental representation of a location may reveal what animals and humans think significant. The cognitive map is likely to show the routes used and where they go.
Cognitive maps can be used to study how children's conception of space expands and becomes differentiated as they mature. They have been constructed for spaces as large as planet earth or as small as a rat's maze.
Cognitive maps can give understanding into the worlds of those with physical handicaps and sensory deficits and physical. The maps of people in wheelchairs emphasize physical barriers in their maps, obstacles that are missing from the maps of those able to move more. Blind people make more use of touch cues and sound than do those of seeing people.
Imagery and cognitive mapping might be applied to the improvement of long-term memory Cognitive mapping and imaginary build permanent mental images and representations out of data about things you think to make your long-term memory. Cognitive mapping are mental representations showing the connections between a set of various ideas that are interrelated. Cognitive mapping may present single words that are enclosed in individual boxes and connected to other concepts