Spatial Representations of Taxi Drivers

Abstract

One of the central questions about cognitive skills is how the necessary knowledge is organized. In the case of spatial skills, there are at least three theoretical viewpoints on the nature of internal representation of large-scale environments. The cognitive mapping approach suggests that this representation is very much like a "map in the head." The more recent geographical approach is still very map-like, but places more emphasis on an abstracted representation based on psychologically salient features and their relationships. The cognitive science approach, on the other hand, recognizes that the representation need not be map-like at all, and emphasizes that the processes which operate on it are an integral part of spatial skill. This study of expert-novice differences among taxi drivers, involving both laboratory tasks and actual driving in the field, has confirmed the validity of the cognitive science approach. Tasks in which a map-like representation would be of value, such as map drawing and placing locations on outline maps, showed no skill differences at all. The representation which did emerge is a hierarchy based upon geographical areas. At the top level are global features (Pittsburgh's three rivers), then general areas (north side, east end), then neighborhoods and, finally, locations within neighborhoods. It may be that this representation is important in planning a route, because a general path between the areas of the hierarchy in which the current position and the destination are located can be retrieved first and elaborated as needed. One important component of this elaboration process, which emerged during the study, is the triggering of route knowledge by visual scenes or icons as they are encountered along the way. Both experts and novices tended to notice ways to improve routes in the field as compared to the routes they predicted they would take. In addition, experts were significantly better at recognizing photographs of various street intersections than were novices, particularly for the less well-known areas. Not surprisingly, experts also exhibited superior knowledge of neighborhoods and streets.