A skilled spatial thinker...

[p 87]

• A skilled spatial thinker is capable of detecting spatial patterns and regularities from a sparse, discontinuous, and error-laden data set.
• A skilled spatial thinker can depict and interpret spatial information despite noisy, ugly data.
• A skilled spatial thinker is also creative in terms of using or, more significantly, creating new representational modes to convey spatial data.

[p 88]

• A skilled spatial thinker can combine multiple kinds of spatial and nonspatial information.
• A skilled spatial thinker must be capable of holding large amounts of spatial information in mind at one time and browsing through these data.

The ultimate power of spatial thinking enables one to see connections between observable or inferred spatial patterns and distributions, on the one hand, and those processes that may have caused those patterns to come into existence, on the other.