Space Syntax and Spatial Cognition

Abstract

Space Syntax research has found that spatial configuration alone, represented and measured in a specific manner, explains a substantial proportion of the variance between aggregate human movement rates in different locations in both urban and building interior space. Although it seems possible to explain "how" people move on the basis of these analyses, the question of "why" they move this way has always seemed problematic since the analysis contains no explicit representations of either motivations or individual cognition. One possible explanation for the predictive power of the method is that the way people understand their environment and decide on movement behaviours is somehow implicitly embedded in space syntax analysis. This paper explores the contribution made by space syntax theories and research to our understanding of environmental cognition, and addresses the question of why the axial representation is so empirically successful. On the basis of a review of some of the relevant findings of space syntax research, it proposes that "cognitive space", defined as that space which supports our understanding of configurations more extensive than our current visual field, is not a metric space, but topological or pre-topological in nature. a hypothetical process for deriving a non-metric from the metric visibility gragh involving exploratory movement is developed. The resulting space is shown to closely resemble the axial graph. Recent research using simulation agents with vision confirms that axial movement patterns follow from a simple random movement rule combined with a forward facing visual field. It is argued that the social effects of spatial configuration is structuring communication and transaction between individuals as based on co-presence in space, and that co-presence is determined by the local visual field and the way that configuration brings movement routes through that field, are thus largely exosomatic in nature.