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It may be that the human brain not only perceives but stores the essentials of a visual scene using the same geometrical, quasi-symbolic, minimalist vocabulary found in maps.

— Alan MacEachren How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995)

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More quotes by Alan MacEachren

To make maps that work, we must depict categories using methods that match the structures of human mental categorization.

How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995)

Without categorization, maps would not be possible.

How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995)

Maps, due to their melding of scientific and artistic approaches, always involve complex interaction between the denotative and the connotative meanings of signs they contain.

How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995)

Understanding how maps work and why maps work (or do not work) as representations in their own right and as prompts to further representations, and what it means for a map to work, are critical issues as we embark on a visual information age.

How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design (1995)

The fact that map is a fuzzy and radial, rather than a precisely defined, category is important because what a viewer interprets a display to be will influence her expectations about the display and how she interacts with it.

A.M. MacEachren (2004)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alan MacEachren (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.