Neurological Role of Cartographic Visual Contrast in Geospatial Cognition
| dc.contributor.advisor | Lobben, Amy | |
| dc.contributor.author | Limpisathian, P. William | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2023-07-06T14:17:17Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2023-07-06 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Cartographers assert that, as a core tenet of effective design, effective implementation of visual contrast is crucial for map reading. It is theorized that without sufficient contrast, readers are hindered from efficiently accessing the underlying spatial information. Yet this essential task of practically implementing effective visual contrast is left unsettled in modern cartographic literature beyond cursory discussions. Numerous cartographers over the past century have studied and failed to conclusively resolve this cartographic conundrum. Further, cartographic theories on visual contrast are themselves borrowed from dated Gestalt psychological theories dating back to the 1920s. This research reexamined cartographic understanding of visual contrast through the modern lens of exploratory neuroscience. An interdisciplinary review of related cartographic, geospatial and neuropsychological literature highlighted the theoretical and epistemological dissonance across visual contrast research. Building from that review, a traditional cartographic behavioral experiment was conducted in parallel to a more novel-to-cartography fMRI neuroimaging experiment. The behavioral study evaluated the effect of visual contrast on the cognitive task of map rotation. The addition of fMRI neuroimaging methods enabled further insight into how visual contrast mediates the underlying geospatial cognitive brain processes associated with map rotation. Together, this novel dual-pronged approach attempted to resolve the cartographic contrast conundrum as well as pinpoint related perceptual and cognitive processes essential for map reading. The research found that changes to cartographic visual contrast result in corresponding changes to behavioral task performance (response time and accuracy) as well as associated brain activities. The behavioral statistical models showed that there were statistically significant relationships between combinatorial levels of hue and lightness contrast on map reader’s accuracy and response time as indicators of general map cognitive performance. The neuroimaging models also showed that there were statistically significant brain activation differences for high versus low hue and high versus low lightness contrast. Further, this dissertation identified regions of the brain associated with map reading and design-centric information decoding that were previously poorly understood. Thus, this dissertation expands the importance and understanding of cartographic visual contrast within modern cognitive cartography literature. | en_US |
| dc.description.embargo | 2025-05-01 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/28499 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.subject | Cartography | en_US |
| dc.subject | Cognition | en_US |
| dc.subject | fMRI | en_US |
| dc.subject | Map Design | en_US |
| dc.subject | Neuro-geography | en_US |
| dc.subject | Visual Contrast | en_US |
| dc.title | Neurological Role of Cartographic Visual Contrast in Geospatial Cognition | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | Department of Geography | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |