COMPARISON OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF VISUAL AND AUDITORY APPROACHES TO CREATING COGNITIVE MAPS OF SPACE

Zakharova Daria Alexandrovna, Menshikova Galina Yakovlevna, Kovalev Artem Ivanovich

Currently, two main approaches are widely used in the study of cognitive maps of space – visual and auditory. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of these techniques in forming human ideas about the spatial structure of the environment. Materials and methods. The experiment involved 72 students aged 18 to 22 years old, who were randomized into two groups. The participants of the first group were presented with visual maps, and the second group had verbal descriptions of routes. A route replay test was used to assess the quality of the formed cognitive maps. Results. It was found that the quality of the recreated cognitive maps was significantly higher (p<0.001) in the group working with visual information. The average number of errors when reproducing routes in this group was 2.3, while participants in the auditory group made an average of 4.8 errors.

Keywords:cognitive maps, spatial representation, visual approach, auditory approach.