Choosing the topic for research is an expression of a person’s fascination for the subject. This fascination is nothing more than the culmination of perceived peculiarities about someone or something that constantly intrigues the individual. In my case I was taken aback by the astounding differences found in the neighbouring districts of Parc-Extension and the Town of Mont-Royal. Call it fate or serendipity, but all it took was a wrong turn on l’Acadie Boulevard to prompt my curiosity about the differences in lifestyle between these two areas. The sight of the fence that separated the calm, quiet and spatially organized environment of the Town of Mont-Royal from the noisy and crowded setting of Parc-Extension was enough to offend me. I had never come across such a variation in land use within such a short distance. Intrigued by this phenomenon, I set out to investigate the reason for this spatial segregation. The study of the different lifestyles required that I go beyond a simple observation of the resident’s daily activities and find a way to experience life as a fellow resident.

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We investigated the interpolation of missing values in data that were fit by bidimensional regression models. This addresses a problem in spatial cognition research in which sketch maps are used to assess the veracity of spatial representations. In several simulations, we compared samples of different sizes with different numbers of interpolated coordinate pairs. A genetic algorithm was used in order to estimate parameter values. We found that artificial inflation in the fit of bidimensional regression models increased with the percent of interpolated coordinate pairs. Furthermore, samples with fewer coordinate pairs resulted in more inflation than samples with more coordinate pairs. These results have important implications for statistical models, especially those applied to the analysis of spatial data.

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There are marked individual differences in the formation of cognitive maps both in the real world and in virtual environments (VE; e.g., Blajenkova, Motes, & Kozhevnikov, 2005; Chai & Jacobs, 2010; Ishikawa & Montello, 2006; Wen, Ishikawa, & Sato, 2011). These differences, however, are poorly understood and can be difficult to assess except by self-report methods. VEs offer an opportunity to collect objective data in environments that can be controlled and standardized. In this study, we designed a VE consisting of buildings arrayed along 2 separated routes, allowing for differentiation of between-route and within-route representation. Performance on a pointing task and a model-building task correlated with self-reported navigation ability. However, for participants with lower levels of between-route pointing, the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction scale (Hegarty, Richardson, Montello, Lovelace, & Subbiah, 2002) did not predict individual differences in accuracy when pointing to buildings within the same route. Thus, we confirm the existence of individual differences in the ability to construct a cognitive map of an environment, identify both the strengths and the potential weaknesses of self-report measures, and isolate a dimension that may help to characterize individual differences more completely. The VE designed for this study provides an objective behavioral measure of navigation ability that can be widely used as a research tool.

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The idea that humans use flexible map-like representations of their environment to guide spatial navigation has a long and controversial history. One reason for this enduring controversy might be that individuals vary considerably in their ability to form and utilize cognitive maps. Here we investigate the behavioral and neuroanatomical signatures of these individual differences. Participants learned an unfamiliar campus environment over a period of three weeks. In their first visit, they learned the position of different buildings along two routes in separate areas of the campus. During the following weeks, they learned these routes for a second and third time, along with two paths that connected both areas of the campus. Behavioral assessments after each learning session indicated that subjects formed a coherent representation of the spatial structure of the entire campus after learning a single connecting path. Volumetric analyses of structural MRI data and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) indicated that the size of the right posterior hippocampus predicted the ability to use this spatial knowledge to make inferences about the relative positions of different buildings on the campus. An inverse relationship between gray matter volume and performance was observed in the caudate. These results suggest that (i) humans can rapidly acquire cognitive maps of large-scale environments and (ii) individual differences in hippocampal anatomy may provide the neuroanatomical substrate for individual differences in the ability to learn and flexibly use these cognitive maps.

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Classical theories of spatial microgenesis (Siegel and White, 1975) posit that information about landmarks and the paths between them is acquired prior to the establishment of more holistic survey-level representations. To test this idea, we examined the neural and behavioral correlates of landmark and path encoding during a real-world route learning episode. Subjects were taught a novel 3 km route around the University of Pennsylvania campus and then brought to the laboratory where they performed a recognition task that required them to discriminate between on-route and off-route buildings. Each building was preceded by a masked prime, which could either be the building that immediately preceded the target building along the route or immediately succeeded it. Consistent with previous reports using a similar paradigm in a virtual environment (Janzen and Weststeijn, 2007), buildings at navigational decision points (DPs) were more easily recognized than non-DP buildings and recognition was facilitated by in-route vs. against-route primes. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data collected during the recognition task revealed two effects of interest: first, greater response to DP vs. non-DP buildings in a wide network of brain regions previously implicated in spatial processing; second, a significant interaction between building location (DP vs. non-DP) and route direction (in-route vs. against-route) in a retrosplenial/parietal-occipital sulcus region previously labeled the retrosplenial complex (RSC). These results indicate that newly learned real-world routes are coded in terms of paths between decision points and suggest that the RSC may be a critical locus for integrating landmark and path information.

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This article discusses several aspects of psychosocial adjustment to blindness and low-vision and proposes that the education of both the self and society are essential for positive adjustment. It exposes some of the general misunderstandings about visual impairment and demonstrates how these are partly responsible for the perpetuation of myths and misconceptions regarding the character and abilities of this population. It argues that confidence and self-esteem are deeply connected to ability and should be regarded as constructive elements of the ego usually manifested in different types of introverted or extroverted behaviour. Wherever possible arguments will be backed by current and past research in social and abnormal psychology as well as specific case studies recorded by the author during the years he spent conducting research and working as a life-skills tutor at the Royal London Society for the Blind.

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The paper reports on two studies being conducted with students from Dorton College, Royal London Society for the Blind (RLSB) in Kent. The first experiment will examine the content and accuracy of mental representations of a well-known environment. Students will walk a route around the college campus and learn the position of 10 buildings or structures. They will then be asked to make heading judgments, estimate distances, complete a spatial cued model and sequentially visit a series of locations. The second experiment will examine the strategies and coding heuristics used to explore a complex novel environment. Students will be asked to explore a maze and learn the location of different places. Their search patterns will be digitally tracked, coded and analyzed using GIS software. Students will be tested using the same methods as in the first experiment and their performance level will be correlated with their exploratory patterns. Throughout the paper we are reminded that construct validity can only be secured by employing multiple converging techniques in the collection and analysis of cognitive data. Methods should be designed to test content and accuracy as well as the utility of mental representations.

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The article reports on the second and final stage of a study con­cerned with the impact of an entertainment retrofit on the per­[ ormance of a shopping center. The study focused on the changes in the type of visitor and the level of patronage inside the Place Alexis Nihon in downtown Montreal after the construction of the neighboring Pepsi Forum. By tracking 729 individuals, a com­prehensive picture of the spatial behavior and trip characteristics of visitors was developed that was compared with the behavior of 722 individuals before the entertainment center was opened. Mo­tivations, trip-planning and evaluations were also probed with a questionnaire applied to 283 individuals. Expectations that each center would benefit from the presence of the other were largely not fulfilled. Results indicated that only a slight synergy exists between the entertainment venues and shopping. The estimated contribution to the shopping center of visitors whose first desti­nation was the entertainment center was 5%. Except for anchor store patronage, the center experienced a decrease in visits to small stores and a tendency for visitors to remain on Doors close to the ground. One year after opening, the entertainment center operators continue to try new retailing combinations to build their own clientele.

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