It’s usually argued that the distortions of the Mercator projection have an effect on the general public’s cognitive map, giving them an incorrect understanding of the relative sizes of nations and continents world wide. To analyze this declare, the Division of Geography at Ghent College performed a research to gather information on individuals’s perceptions of the world and take a look at their understanding of the relative sizes of nations and continents.
The Mercator projection drastically exaggerates the dimensions of landmasses as they method the poles. For example, on a map utilizing the Mercator projection, Greenland seems almost the dimensions of Africa, though Africa is 14 occasions bigger in actuality. This has led to considerations that the widespread use of the Mercator projection might contribute to widespread misconceptions concerning the Earth’s geography.
To discover this additional, Ghent College developed a web based take a look at titled How correct is your psychological map? The take a look at was designed to evaluate how nicely members may estimate the sizes of nations, areas, and continents, and explored their familiarity with completely different map projections.
You should use this take a look at your self to find the accuracy of your individual psychological map of the world. Throughout the take a look at you might be requested to estimate the dimensions of 12 completely different nations or continents compared to different areas of the world. In every of the 12 rounds you might be offered with a map of two nations or continents and easily have to make use of the ‘-‘ and ‘+’ buttons to vary the dimensions of the 2 nations or continents with reference to one another.
On the finish of the take a look at you possibly can view your outcomes, together with a rating for every of the 12 comparisons. The outcomes additionally present how carefully your estimates matched the precise sizes of the in contrast nations or continents.
Curiously, in reference to the well-known West Wing clip that criticized the Mercator projection, the research concluded that members, on common, “estimated the continents somewhat extra precisely when projected within the Mercator projection” than when utilizing the Gall–Peters projection. Nonetheless, the research additionally discovered that members accustomed to the Robinson projection estimated sizes extra precisely than these accustomed to the Mercator projection. This discovering helps the concept that incorporating higher map projections, such because the Robinson projection, in instructional settings can enhance spatial consciousness and understanding of worldwide geography.
For these considering exploring the research’s findings additional, the complete conclusions can be found within the printed paper, The Affect of Map Projections on Folks’s International-Scale Cognitive Map: A Worldwide Examine.
By way of: OSMWeekly
