{"id":17045,"date":"2021-05-15T16:00:11","date_gmt":"2021-05-15T14:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.linkfacts.link\/mind-map-concept-map-cognitive-map-semantic-network-explained\/"},"modified":"2022-05-23T09:57:46","modified_gmt":"2022-05-23T07:57:46","slug":"mind-map-concept-map-cognitive-map-semantic-network-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.linkfacts.link\/de\/mind-map-concept-map-cognitive-map-semantic-network-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind map, concept map, cognitive map, semantic network explained"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mind map, concept map, cognitive map, semantic network explained <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the common traits and the differences of mind maps<\/strong>, concept maps<\/strong>, cognitive maps<\/strong> and semantic networks<\/strong>? What are the applications of all of those?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following concept map let’s you explore and navigate the various characteristics of the four techniques and their applications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click on the picture to open the LinkFacts concept map.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Common traits<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In short all four techniques aim at representing and understanding concepts and thus increase our knowledge<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All four techniques rely on some form of visualization of the concepts and their relationships<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is more or less where the communalities end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mind maps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mindmap, mind map<\/strong> and mind-map and their plurals are commonly used and in some countries people favour one of the variants. The activity of creating mind maps is called mind mapping<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A mind map is a tree that represents a central topic<\/strong> and its subtopics<\/strong>. Multiple levels of subtopics are connected to the central topic, and each subtopic has only one parent. The semantic meaning of the relations is not explicitly defined<\/strong> and may be implicitly described by ‘sub-topic of’, ‘composed of’, ‘leads to’, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resulting tree is clearly hierarchical<\/strong> and directed from the central topic to the recursive sub-topics, very similar to the folder structure in computer file systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click on the picture below to open the LinkFacts concept and explore definitions, characteristics and an example<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Concept maps and semantic networks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Concept maps extend the notion of a semantic network, which were invented in the 1950′ to represent knowledge in general terms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concept maps may have a main topic, but can as well have multiple central topics (as the concept map used to illustrate this blog), or no central topic at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a graph theory point of view, a concept map is a directed graph, where in principle any node can be connected to any other node without any limitation. The relationships or connections between nodes have a semantic meaning attached to them and displayed as their label. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These properties make concept maps much more powerful than mind maps, as first of all the relationships or not limited to some hierarchy, but can link any two nodes of a graph, and both nodes and connections carry semantic meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click on the picture below to open the LinkFacts concept and explore definitions, characteristics and an example<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cognitive maps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Cognitive maps are the umbrella term for all kind of visual representations of mental models, an as such encompass both concept maps and mind maps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are thus very general and not bound to any formalism. They can be composed of nodes, relationships, but also schemas, flow diagrams, lists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They serve to illustrate processes, behaviours and any other aspects of systems or environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comparison of characteristics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The following table compares the characteristics of Mind map, Concept map, Semantic network and Cognitive map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/td>Mind map<\/span><\/td>Concept map<\/span><\/td>Semantic network<\/span><\/td>Cognitive map<\/span><\/td><\/tr>
Appeared<\/span><\/td>1974<\/td>1970<\/td>1950<\/td>1948<\/td><\/tr>
Inventor of term or concept<\/span><\/td>Tony Buzan<\/a><\/td>Joseph Novak<\/a><\/td>Richard H. Richens<\/a><\/td>Edward Tolman<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Topology<\/span><\/td>Tree<\/td>Graph<\/td>Graph<\/td>Undefined<\/td><\/tr>
Elements<\/span><\/td>Nodes and relationships<\/td>Nodes and relationships<\/td>Nodes and relationships<\/td>Nodes and relationships, schemas, lists, …<\/td><\/tr>
Central node (topic)<\/span><\/td>Yes<\/td>No<\/td>No<\/td>No<\/td><\/tr>
Hierarchy<\/span><\/td>Yes, implicit<\/td>No<\/td>No<\/td>No<\/td><\/tr>
Nodes have single parent<\/span><\/td>Yes<\/td>No<\/td>No<\/td>No<\/td><\/tr>
Relationships are directed<\/span><\/td>Yes, implicitly<\/td>Directed and undirected<\/td>Directed<\/td>Anything is possible<\/td><\/tr>
Relationships have custom semantics (labeled)<\/span><\/td>No<\/td>Yes<\/td>Yes<\/td>Possible<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Applications and solutions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The most common applications of cognitive mapping (mind mapping and concept mapping alike) are the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n