The map-use research focused on Map-Reading, Map-Using, and Map-Generating tasks

Abstract

This paper presents a conceptual and epistemological review about the map-use research, focusing on the map-reading tasks. We have discussed the theoretical connections needed to stablish the Cartography as science, based on the development of the map-use research. We have written this review based on researches developed under the functional approach, specifically those concerned to investigate the “map-reading tasks”. We have considered the Map-Reading Tasks as those elementary subjects, which allowed cartographers to understand the map-use process, as well as, to improve the cartographic communication. Therefore, while building the chronological and conceptual connections between the researches on “map-use”, we have explained the cartographic epistemological development, as it was founded as a field of knowledge. Finally, we have also discussed the critical changes on the map-use research, caused by the technological developments occurred in the last two decades. Thereby, at the end of this review we have proposed the expression “map-using, and map-generating tasks” as a complementary term to the old way of interacting with maps, delimited by the expression "map reading tasks".