In “Cognitive Research in GIScience: Recent Achievements and Future Prospects” by Daniel Montello, the key aspets of cognitive GIScience are introduced. I feel like dividing the areas of cognitive GIScience into the six sections of “(i) human factors of GIS, (ii) geovisualization, (iii) navigation systems, (iv) cognitive geo-ontologies, (v) geographic and environmental spatial thinking and memory, and (vi) cognitive aspects of geographic education (1826)” as well as giving concrete examples of what each one meant, helped my understanding of the range of the field.
This paper had some very thoughtful observations about GIScience and I would like to bring attention to one paragraph in particular that encapsulates the challenges of studying GIScience to which I think our entire class can relate:
GIScience involves knowing about geography, cartography, surveying, mathematics, computer science, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, economics, sociology, and more. It is asking a lot to expect any individual to achieve expertise in such a diverse array of fields; integrating all of it is even more challenging. But it is just such an integration of many diverse areas of intellectual content and method that is the central challenge of GIScience. Arguably, without such a coherent integration, there is little warrant for referring to ‘GIScience’ as a single entity.
Being a competent GIScientist seems to necessitate both specialization in many topics yet also the ability to construct a general understanding of how they all combine. Under the topic of cognitive geo-ontologies, the idea of language being a limiting factor resonates strongly – I am constantly searching for more precise phrasing and sometimes get the feeling that if only the right words were invented then all the half-formed conceptual relationships in my head could become real.
On a completely different tangent, a few weeks ago we talked about how it would be a challenge for geographers to keep themselves relevant in the face of increased dependence on advanced coding and computer scientists to tackle GIS issues. This article mentioned how the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and GIScience has not been properly explored and it might be that area can give a chance for a new type of specialized geographer to employ unique beneficial skills.
-Vdev