Book Description

Previous research in the field of geography has generally supported the contention that much of the information that man receives from and about his external environment is filtered through, and distorted in, the very mind that receives the data. For the observer, this filtered information comes to constitute the objective world. Behavioral geography has concentrated on examining this complex phenomenon, seeking to isolate and to understand the influence of those components of external reality that pass these filters, and how they have been altered in the very act of being perceived and assimilated. The argument is made that if scientists can come to understand how and why human minds process information they have received from the outside, and can identify what is transmuted and used, it then becomes possible not only to explain the basis on which individual choices are made by those inhabiting cognized environments, but also to shape the environments themselves so as to influence behavior within them.