PhD, Case Western Reserve University
 
 

with  Tyson

I work in the Expert Spatial Systems Laboratory (P203 Bio Sci) with Professor Don Heth and several individual studies, honors, and graduate students. Ours is an interdisciplinary lab. We welcome psychology students who are interested in perceptual and cognitive development. We also welcome computing science students who are interested in expert systems and navigation aids.
 

This year we are managing several projects that compare the ways that children and adults find their way in natural environments. We are especially interested in the strategies that people use when they are lost in cities. Wayfinding is a natural task for revealing planning, memory, and problem solving abilities. Our findings have implications for the ways parents can instruct children and the ways that search operations are organized when a child becomes lost.
 

One of the applications we are developing is a decision support tool for urban police search managers. This tool is an integration of a data base on lost person behavior, a geographic information system (GIS, or layered digital map), and an interface that preserves the operations that experts use to manage these incidents. We have recently installed a beta version for testing by the York Regional Police Service.

We have good collaborations with other faculty in the Cognition area of the Department of Psychology.
 

Professor Ed Cornell studies the problem of geographic orientation.

Processes of Wayfinding

Cornell, E H, Heth, C D & Rowat, W L (1992). Way finding by children and adults: Response to instructions to use look-back and retrace strategies. Developmental Psychology,28, 328-336.

Cornell, E H, Heth, C D & Alberts, D M (1994). Place recognition and way finding by children and adults. Memory & Cognition,22, 537-542.   Abstract

Cornell, E H, Heth, C D & Skoczylas, M J (1999). The nature and use of route expectancies following incidental learning Journal of Environmental Psychology,19, 209-229.

Cornell, E H & Heth, C D (2000). Route learning and wayfinding. In R. Kitchin & S. Freundschuh (Eds.), Cognitive mapping: Past, present and future. London: Routledge.

Cornell, E H, Sorenson, A. & Mio, T. (2003). Human sense of direction and way finding.  Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 93, 402-428.  Abstract PDF

Cornell, E H & Heth, C D. (2004). Memories of travel: Dead reckoning within the cognitive map. In G. Allen (Ed.) Human spatial memory: Remembering where (pp. 191-215). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. PDF

Lost Person Behavior

Cornell, E H, & Heth, C D (1996). Distance traveled during urban and suburban walks led by 3- to 12-year-olds: Tables for search managers. Response! The Journal of the National Association for Search and Rescue,15, 6-9.   Tables

Cornell, E H, Heth, C D, Kneubuhler, Y & Sehgal, S (1996). Serial position effects in children's route reversal errors: Implications for police search operations. Applied Cognitive Psychology,10, 301-326.   Abstract

Heth, C D, & Cornell, E H (1998). Characteristics of travel by persons lost in Albertan wilderness areas. Journal of Environmental Psychology,18, 223-235.  Abstract

Cornell, E H & Hill, K. A. (2005) The problem of lost children. Chapter to appear in C. Spencer & M. Blades (Eds.), Children and their environments: Learning, using, and designing spaces (pp. 26-41). Cambridge,  UK: Cambridge University Press.  PDF

Heth, C. D. & Cornell, E H (2006). A Geographic Information System for managing search for lost persons. In G. Allen (Ed.), Applied spatial cognition: From research to cognitive technology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.  PDF

The Development of Home Range

Cornell, EH, Hadley, DC, Sterling TM, Chan, MA, & Boechler, P. (2001). Adventure as a stimulus for cognitive development.  Journal of Environmental Psychology 21, 219-231 .  Abstract PDF

Cornell, EH & Heth, CD, (2006). Home range and the development of children's way finding. In R. Kail (Ed.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 34, 173-206. New York: Elsevier  PDF

Bad hair adventures

Rock peeling