Some Ways that Maps and Diagrams Communicate

Since ancient times, people have devised cognitive artifacts to extend memory and ease information processing. Among them are graphics, which use elements and the spatial relations among them to represent worlds that are actually or metaphorically spatial. Maps schematize the real world in that they are two-dimensional, they omit information, they regularize, they use inconsistent scale and perspective, and they exaggerate, fantasize, and carry messages. With little proding, children and adults use space and spatial relations to represent abstract relations, temporal, quantitative, and preference, in stereotyped ways, suggesting that these mappings are cognitively natural. Graphics reflect conceptions of reality, not reality.