Examinating human interaction with maps helps understand spatial cognition. In the project we investigate the relationships between maps as spatial media and the represented symbolic and pictorial knowledge. One goal is to characterize and formalize pictorial and propositional representation formats. Every map shows only certain aspects of the geographic world.

It is possible to formally describe aspect maps. An example of spatial reasoning with aspect maps can be seen here. One result of this project is the SIMSIS architecture. We also performed a psychological study in cooperation with the MeMoSpace project. Our future research plans can be seen here.