Mental Map

http://www.fedstats.gov/kids/mapstats/concepts_mentalmaps.html

Mental Maps communicate what an individual knows and can draw about some aspect and part of the world. A mental map represents particular geographic relationships based on the experience of an individual. A mental map communicates those relationships from the perceptions of one or sometimes a small group of people, but often can be difficult to understand without some form of description or use of standardized cartographic representations. This example of a mental map depicts "Carlton Hill" and the surrounding streets. Since a mental map shows what a particular person knows about a particular location and its' uniqueness, no mental map is alike. Every human has their own mental map. In this example, a class of students was asked to make a sketch of the neighborhood that they live in. Therefore, all of the drawn "mental maps" look different.