Spatial Concept Perspectives

We have gathered ~300 excerpts from published works about fundamental spatial concept terms. These have been cross-referenced with the concept lexicon appearing on the left. Those terms were drawn from the U.S.National Science Education Standards (NSES 1996) for topic areas B - Physical Science, C - Life Science, D - Earth and Space Science, as well as from the 1994 U.S. Geography Teaching Standards for grades 9-12. Those standards can be browsed here.

spatial concept terms

disciplinary perspectives on "shape"

good shape

...good shape itself...is made up from multiple coherent centers...It is easiest to understand good shape as a recursive rule. ..the elements of any good shape are good shapes themselves (p 179).

Alexander (2004)

The Nature of Order, Book 1: The Phenomenon of Life

shape

Pattern and shape. By definition, shape is accepted to be related to a condition of closure. Pattern, however, simply describes the arrangement of the phenomena with respect to each other. In this case, the occurrences are not referred to a boundary or to the size of the area in which they occur. Patterns, of course, can be formed by points, lines, or areas (e.g., mosaics).

Geography

Golledge (1995)

Primitives of Spatial Knowledge

shape

Areal units all have two-dimensional shape, that is, a set of relationships of relative position between points on their perimeters which is unaffected by changes in scale. Shape is a property of many objects of interest in geography, such as drumlins, coral atolls, and central business districts (p. 177/see source for more)

Geography

O'Sullivan and Unwin (2002)

Geographic Information Analysis

shape

Topic AM3-3. Identify situations in which shape affects geometric operations; Explain what is meant by the convex hull and minimum enclosing rectangle of a set of point data; Explain why the shape of an object might be important in analysis; Exemplify situations in which the centroid of a polygon falls outside its boundary; Compare and contrast different shape indices, include examples of applications to which each could be applied; Develop a method for describing the shape of a cluster of similarly valued points.

Geography
Education

DiBiase, et al. (2006)

Geographic Information Science and Technology Body of Knowledge

shape

The shape of a natural object (including its size and orientation) carries clues about its history and formative rocesses. To begin with the most famous examples of ascribing meaning to the shape of natural objects in the history of geosciences, Alfred Wegener (1929) noted the jigsaw fit of the coastlines of Africa and South America, and inferred that the continents had previously been connected (pp.

Earth Science

Kastens and Ishikawa (2006)

Spatial thinking in the geosciences and cognitive sciences: A cross-disciplinary look at the intersection of two fields

shape

...readily observable spatial properties (of an object) are size and shape

Geography

Kaufman (2004)

Using Spatial-Temporal Primitives to Improve Geographic Skills for Preservice Teachers

shape

Individuals form scan paths that enable them to recognize similar perceptual objects (e.g. triangles that look approximately the same). When several different types of triangular perceptual objects are abstracted and associated with the word triangle, an early conceptualization of triangle is created. However, at this early stage of recognition, an individual's "conceptualization" of triangle is usually limited to a small set of prototypes and is holistic in nature (p 856-7).

Linguistics

OED Online (2nd Ed.)

Oxford English Dictionary, Online Edition

shape

the constancy of shapes results from their sensori-motor construction at the time of co-ordination of perspectives (p 11).

Psychology

Piaget and Inhelder (1967)

The Child's Conception of Space

shape

Central to recognition and to categorization of objects at the basic level is contour, or shape. Underlying shape for most objects are parts in the proper configuration (p 3).

Psychology

Tversky (2005)

Functional Significance of Visuospatial Representations

shape

Individuals form scan paths that enable them to recognize similar perceptual objects (e.g. triangles that look approximately the same). When several different types of triangular perceptual objects are abstracted and associated with the word triangle, an early conceptualization of triangle is created. However, at this early stage of recognition, an individual's "conceptualization" of triangle is usually limited to a small set of prototypes and is holistic in nature (p 856-7).

Mathematics

Battista (2007)

The Development of Geometric and Spatial Thinking