Cognitive and Social Spaces

Funded by Leverhulme Trust and the Alan Turing Institute from 2022 to 2026

The Cognitive and Social Spaces project explores how we can better understand cities through improved measures of human perceptions and use of space.

This work draws on several different datasets and analysis methods, including analysing large-scale vehicular trajectories, mobility traces, movement within virtual reality spaces, and the trajectories through Sea Hero Quest game app.

We are interested in how we explain heterogeneity in these behaviours, influenced by personal factors and characteristics as well as spatial contexts.

Another stage to this work relates to how we subsequently model these behaviours through agent-based modelling and spatial analysis. This work questions the validity of typical quantitive assumptions relating to cost (e.g. Euclidean distance), and raises alternative potential methods.

People

Dr Yitao Yang

Outputs

Manley, E., Filomena, G. and Mavros, P., 2021. A spatial model of cognitive distance in cities. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, pp.1-23.
Walkowiak, S., Coutrot, A., Hegarty, M., Velasco, P.F., Wiener, J.M., Dalton, R.C., Hölscher, C., Hornberger, M., Spiers, H.J. and Manley, E., 2022. Cultural determinants of the gap between self-estimated navigation ability and wayfinding performance: evidence from 46 countries. Scientific Reports.
Coutrot, A., Manley, E., Goodroe, S., Gahnstrom, C., Filomena, G., Yesiltepe, D., Dalton, R.C., Wiener, J.M., Hölscher, C., Hornberger, M. and Spiers, H.J., 2022. Entropy of city street networks linked to future spatial navigation ability. Nature, 604(7904), pp.104-110.
Griesbauer, E.M., Manley, E., McNamee, D., Morley, J. and Spiers, H., 2022. What determines a boundary for navigating a complex street network: Evidence from London taxi drivers. The Journal of Navigation, 75(1), pp.15-34.
Filomena, G., Verstegen, J., Manley, E. 2019. A Computational Approach to ‘The Image of the City’. Cities. 89. 14-25.