geo-106-essay

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Toronto Metropolitan University *

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106

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Electrical Engineering

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Jun 7, 2024

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Geo 106 essay ...... Geographies of Everyday Life (Toronto Metropolitan University) Scan to open on Studocu Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university Geo 106 essay ...... Geographies of Everyday Life (Toronto Metropolitan University) Scan to open on Studocu Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university Downloaded by Jacob Langermandick (wopeja9528@losvtn.com) lOMoARcPSD|42019762

TYPE ALL ENTRIES BELOW AND DO NOT ALTER THIS TEMPLATE! IT SHOULD BE USED AS THE FIRST PAGE OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT. USE THE LAST NAME AND FIRST NAME ON YOUR RYERSON STUDENT RECORD. LAST NAME: De Franco FIRST NAME: Alexander STUDENT NUMBER: 500964209 COURSE: GEO 106 SECTION NUMBER: 011 INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Philip Coppack, JOR 609 ESSAY TOPIC (circle one): Neighborhoods Mental Maps (SET #): 5 NEIGHBORHOOD (if chosen): ESSAY TITLE: Mental Maps of Toronto Introducton: Mental maps are very necessary in our day to day lives. We use them to navigate ourselves, imagine scenarios, and visualize what we can’t see. These maps are egotstcal images and afect 1 Downloaded by Jacob Langermandick (wopeja9528@losvtn.com) lOMoARcPSD|42019762

our decision making. 1 In this essay, I will be examining 10 mental maps of other students to beter understand how people think and what the prominent features are that help them visualize a map are. 2 Before startng this study, I predicted that landmarks like the CN tower and well-known places (nodes) help everyone visualize downtown Toronto. For me, and I assume most others, street names can get confusing and creatng a mental map can be very difcult to illustrate, even though I know myself how to get around and locate where, for example, a hospital is. If you asked me to give directons to that hospital, I would be able to remember some main streets and some directons, but in terms of being specifc and giving instructons, it may not be as easy for everyone to visualize things the same way as I do. If I told someone to go west of the CN tower and turn towards the lake, for me at least that’s as simple as I can make it sound, but for others that can be confusing. With 10 mental maps from 10 diferent people of downtown Toronto, we will use Sonnenfeld’s environments, the study of knowledge based on interacton, and Lynch’s Model to help us understand the psychology of humans in terms of visualizing maps of downtown Toronto, and applying those concepts to create my own composite mental map. Background: In this essay, I used the studies of mental maps, to create and interpret the set of mental maps I observed. Two types of mental maps are composite mental maps and Lynch’s maps, derived from studies of Lynch. Data and Methods: 1 Coppack, Phillip. “Lecture 4 - Mental Maps and Imagery.” GEO 106 - GEOGRAPHIES OF EVERYDAY LIFE - F2021. Accessed November 24, 2021. https://courses.ryerson.ca/d2l/le/content/498840/viewContent/3932941/View. 2 Coppack, Phillip. “PORTFOLIO MAPS #5.” GEO 106 - GEOGRAPHIES OF EVERYDAY LIFE - F2021. Accessed November 24, 2021. https://courses.ryerson.ca/d2l/le/content/498840/viewContent/3871879/View. 2 Downloaded by Jacob Langermandick (wopeja9528@losvtn.com) lOMoARcPSD|42019762

A composite mental map can be created by observing multple mental maps, and creatng one composite mental map, with the knowledge and informaton gathered from the maps observed. Using these, I could observe the paterns and most prominent features in other’s mental maps. To analyze and create conclusions, I used proportons and tallies. Another concept that should was used was Lynch’s elements. Lynch stated that fve main features of people’s mental maps are; Nodes, paths, edges, landmarks, and districts. Landmarks are spots that are easy seen, such as the CN Tower. Nodes are similar, as nodes are also well-known spots among most people, such as malls and subway statons. The diference is that people know are familiar with nodes because of what’s inside the place, whereas landmarks are usually known because of their distnct visibility. Paths are used to represent streets or any path that is used for transportaton or mobility. An edge is anything that prevents movement, such as a lake or barrier. A district is an area where buildings and features share commonalites, such as Chinatown and the Distllery district. These fve features make up these mental maps, and help us navigate and visualize areas. Results and Discussion Afer tallying each feature from the 10 mental maps in portolio set 5, I discovered that the most prominent feature that these 10 individuals included in their maps were paths. This makes sense, as navigatng anywhere is not possible without roads. Almost all the maps included Dundas Street, and Yonge Street. To give directons, intersectons and changes of directon are necessary, and this is possible through illustratng paths. Altogether, I tallied 70 total paths from all maps combined. The second most prominent feature is nodes, with a tally of 29. This makes sense, as humans imagine directons and maps based on what’s close to well-known spots, making it easier to communicate and give directons to someone who is less familiar with side streets and the non-major streets. In downtown Toronto, some common nodes among the maps included the Eaton’s Centre, Ryerson University, University of Toronto, and Union Staton. The last feature that was visible in more than one map was districts, which were interpreted diferently among map creators. While one person considered all of downtown Toronto a district, while another closed of the entertainment district and Ryerson’s campus as a district. A tally counted 5 total districts. Because landmarks and edges were not displayed in over 12% of the maps, they will not be considered in this study. The reason for which edges were not 3 Downloaded by Jacob Langermandick (wopeja9528@losvtn.com) lOMoARcPSD|42019762

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