The Effect of Visual Scale on Founding Mental Map

Map is not a simply copy of the earth but the model of it, which is abstracted and generalized based on different needs after man's cognition of the world.Scale is one of the important properties of map.Scale not only establishes the geometry scale relation between the map and the real world but also reflects the generalization degree of people's spatial cognition.As a powerful tool of spatial cognition, the map's status is never fluctuated by other things.After all, the map's expression mode of spatial is more fit to man's thinking.Mental map is the inside tokens that comes from the brain generalized or managed many kinds of information.Map is the most important form within these information sources.This paper advances the concept of visual scale that adapts to visual sensation by way of analyzing process from visual sensation to metal map and the characters of mental map.And the paper expounds the effect of visual scale on founding mental map.Mental map is the mental product of man's spatial cognition of the world.It is the main mode for man to cognize and transfers the spatial information.As a mental element, the mental map's form is conditioned and affected by many elements.Reading map is the effective way to found the mental map and cognize the spatial information.Different designs and means and quality of map have different effects on founding mental map.The excellent map design can offer the mental map that is alike the real world.This paper discusses the map design's effect on founding mental map.Scale is another important factor in map design.And the appropriate scale can help readers to found certain measure (right) mental maps.Although the map's main scale is ensured,different reading conditions and different representations of the map can make the reader found different metal maps.The paper also debates the relationships of visual scale and mental map.