Ever watch a trail of ants winding their way toward some edible
morsel? Thecritters are following a chemical signal laid down by their
predecessors. Wipe away the molecular trail with a sponge and the ants
will stumble about in confusion, desperately searching for a route that
no longer exists.
That's not unlike the hardships faced by Los Angeles residents
after the earthquake last January. The quake destroyed parts of the
country's busiest highway, the Santa Monica Freeway, forcing hundreds of
thousands of commuters to find a new way to get to work.
Enter researchers at the University of Buffalo. Geography professor
David M. Mark, Ph.D., and Ph.D. student Ann K. Deakin recognized an
earth-shaking opportunity to look at how the temporary traffic turmoil
affected residents' mental maps and how those maps affect the nature of
city life.
We use mental map--the spatial organization of places and images in
our minds--to plan our commute, decide where to shop, and give roadside
directions to strangers. But those maps sometimes bear little resemblance
to reality. They may become outdated, just like old road maps, and are
often clouded by our perceptions.
Before the quake, for example, some Angelenos avoided Beverly Hills
and South Central L.A. because they assumed the former was too exclusive,
the latter too dangerous. They may even have imagined those neighborhoods
to be more distant from their own than they actually are. Commuters
forced to drive through those areas after the quarke, says Deakin, "may
perceive some of those neighborhoods as more accessible now, and not so
frightening."
The researchers don't yet know what the quake's long-term effects
will have on residents' mental cartography. But the unexpectedly speedy
repair of the Santa Monica Freeway may have minimized any changes. And at
least one behavioral aftershock never materialized. Some authorities
speculated that commuters might begin patronizing local shops they
discovered while taking an alternate route. "None of the people in
businesses we talked to reported anything like that," says Mark.
PHOTO: Puppet ants walking down the freeway.
Tags:
aftershock,
angelenos,
ants,
business,
cartography,
chemical signal,
commute,
commuters,
deakin,
earthquake,
geography professor,
hardships,
Los Angeles,
mental map,
mental maps,
morsel,
predecessors,
professor david,
quarke,
resemblance,
road maps,
santa monica freeway,
spatial organization,
speedy repair,
university of buffalo
