LEARNING FROM CARTOGRAMS - THE EFFECTS OF REGION FAMILIARITY

Value-by-area maps, or cartograms, are a curiosity-provoking method of depicting geographically related data. The use of cartograms for lear ning such data involves a learner's familiarity with the region depict ed and the distortion of true, earth-centered scale. To examine the ef fects of region familiarity and region distortion on learning from car tograms, college undergraduates viewed a true-scale map of either a fa miliar or an unfamiliar region followed by either a cartogram or a dat a map of the same region. They then drew the true-scale map from memor y, and matched map data-levels on a cued-recall map. Long-term familia rity was observed as an important prerequisite for successful use of c artograms. Cartogram depiction of unfamiliar regions resulted in inacc urate reconstructions and degraded levels of data recall. The results were interpreted with respect to cognitive theoretical assumptions. Su ggestions were made regarding the instructional use of cartograms.