INCREASING THE INTEGRITY OF COGNITIVE MAPPING RESEARCH - APPRAISING CONCEPTUAL SCHEMATA OF ENVIRONMENT BEHAVIOR INTERACTION

This article examines the development of conceptual schemata of enviro nment-behaviour interaction since behavioural geography's inception in the late 1960s. Although these schemata have developed since then, th ey have remained naive and in many cases conceptually weak, lacking ps ychological 'depth'. It is argued that this is one of the prime reason s why behavioural geography failed to achieve academic 'take-off'. Way s to increase the integrity of cognitive mapping research are examined by developing and implementing an integrative conceptual schema. This schema draws together five contemporary theories concerning cognitive map knowledge's content, structure and form, the learning strategies used to acquire such knowledge and the processes of spatial thought, a nd interweaves them with basic transactional theory to produce a more detailed schema of spatial thought and behaviour. It is argued that th is schema, by combining contemporary theories into a more complete who le, advances transactionalism by explicitly detailing the mental proce sses that are used in environment-behaviour interaction. This provides a theory which is framed in cognition and human agency, and which is reactive to environmental, societal and cultural contexts. As such, it provides a new theoretical framework for future cognitive mapping res earch, raising new questions and providing testable hypotheses. In add ition, the schema explicitly illustrates how geographical and psycholo gical theory and practice can be combined to provide an integrative fr amework for cognitive mapping research.