Psychophysics: Foundation for Map DesignGeorge F. McCleary, Jr. University of KansasIt is really quite simple. The word psychophysics is not complex: in thirteen letters it combines two basic ideas, psychology (“the study of the mind and how it works”) and physics (“the scientific study of the properties and interactions of matter and energy”) … or combined (and rephrased), the study of how the mind deals with the properties and interactions of matter and energy. The mind “manages” sensations and perception and processes cognitions. There are stimuli, and there are responses. A simple example: there is a person … a map user … and there is a map. The map is a stimulus … it provides information. The person (using his/her mind) responds to the map. This is a behavioral thing: a stimulus-response relationship. Simple maps generate simpler responses than complex maps … and there are very few simple maps. Psychophysics provides a foundation for understanding and explaining the map-user relationship.
The Cartographic Discourse of Human Interactions: A Brief Introduction to the Work of Gunnar OlssonChristine Bush, autonomous scholar (ideaspeak.us)Cartography is commonly reduced to the craft of map making without a full appreciation for its legacy as an intellectual framework and cognitive practice that has had profound implications for endeavors beyond the geographical. Gunnar Olsson, author of ten books, is professor emeritus of geography at Uppsala University, Sweden.
The International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (2009) describes his work as “a lifelong journey of self-conscious reevaluation” in which Olsson “has pursued his core theme of human interaction in search of its geographical essences.” The culmination of this journey is an epic work,
Abysmal (2007, Univ. Chicago Press Books), that offers fascinating insights into the intersection of human reasoning and cartographic rhetoric. My overview of this work will invite cartographers to move beyond thinking about their work in increasingly technological terms and to also engage with the historical and philosophical discourses at play when we think, not about cartography, but cartographically.
https://t.co/5OwdT7DUSCTelling Stories Mark Denil, National Ice CenterIt seems, in just the last few years, to have become commonplace to say that that maps 'tell stories', but What does this mean? What is a story, and what does it mean to tell a story? What is the role of a story teller, and can a map fulfill that role? What is actually going on when someone believes that a map is telling them a story?, and furthermore, what (and whose) stories are being told, and to whom? This talk will explore these questions and examine some maps that might be suspected of telling stories.
