Emotional cartography

Drawing a map is an emotional action. There is joy when re-living spatial memory and frustration when there is not enough memory to retrieve a location.

Emotional retrieval of spatial memory was studied by psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1970s. After asking 218 Parisians to draw a map of their city, he found people left out major landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, instead marking locations that were attached to emotional events and daily routine in their own lives. For example, a butcher drew a map featuring the slaughterhouse, stockyards and shop fronts that had displays of meat-cutting equipment.

In this time of indoor and digital living, remembering the world beyond the front door brings nostalgia. The streets, bars, cafes and beaches have now become a fond yet blurred memory for me.

What are your emotional landmarks? If you were asked to draw a map of your city or local area from memory, what would it look like? How would it be different from mine?

This Nautilus article is a deep dive into emotional and cognitive map-making, from Ancient Greece to today.