Application of Environmental Learning Theory to Spatial Knowledge Acquisition from Maps Alan M. MacEachren Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, FAX 814/863-4718, e-mail Nyb@psuvm.bitnet. Abstract. Knowledge of space is critical to attitudes toward, decision making about, and behavior within places. A person’s environ- mental knowledge depends upon how knowl- edge is acquired and mentally processed. Past studies of environmental knowledge acquisi- tion have focused primarily on that which re- sults from behavior in the environment. Re- search has led to a developmental theory that views knowledge acquisition as a gradual pro- cess that begins with selective, fragmentary information about a place, to which the in- dividual information adds over time until an integrated cognitive representation is achieved. The present study was designed to determine the applicability of this develop- mental theory of environmental knowledge ac- quisition to learning from maps. I also con- sider issues of hierarchical spatial knowledge organization, the extent to which cognitive “maps” are images, propositions, or both, and the systematic biases inherent in knowledge obtained from maps. This paper describes an experiment in which map presentation strategies incorporating seg- mentation are compared to a control case. Two of these segmentation strategies are designed to facilitate a developmental sequence for knowledge acquisition, one focused on land- marks and the other on routes. The third seg- mentation strategy emphasizes development of a regionalized hierarchical knowledge struc- ture. The developmentally-based segmenta- tion strategy emphasizing routes makes knowl- edge acquisition easier, but the control case in which the map is not segmented results in Annals of the Association of Amencan Geographers 82(2) 1992 pp 245-274 0 Copyright 1992 by Association of American Leographers faster access of distance and direction informa- tion on a subsequent test. No difference in accuracy of distance and direction estimates occurred among groups. Overall findings sup- port a dual coding theory for spatial knowledge in which both analog (image) and propositional information is included in cognitive maps. Dis- tance and direction tasks seem to be solved using imagery except when subjects judged to have low visualization ability use a map learn- ing strategy that facilitates propositional encod- ing-the route-segmentation strategy. Evi- dence suggests that differences in map versus environment-derived cognitive representations identified by other authors are not simply due to a difference between viewing maps holisti- cally and environments in segments, but to a combination of segmentation with a focus on routes that leads to procedural encoding. Key Words: spatial knowledge acquisition, environ- mental learning theory, cognitive map, map segmen- tation, imagery coding, propositional coding. OGNlTlVE mapping, the process of spa- tial knowledge acquisition and organi- zation, has intrigued investigators from many disciplines including geography, cartog- raphy, psychology, planning , and architect ure. Geographers interested in environmental per- ception, for example, have studied cognitive maps in relation to risk perception by the pub- lic and how these perceptions should be incor- porated in public policy related to natural and technological hazards (e.g., Zeigler et al. 1983). Some urban social geographers have studied