How spatial is hyperspace? Interacting with hypertext documents: Cognitive processes and concepts

The World Wide Web provides us with a widely accessible technology, fast access to massive amounts of information and services, and the opportunity for personal interaction with numerous individuals simultaneously. Underlying and influencing all of these activities is our basic conceptualization of this new environment; an environment we can view as having a cognitive component (hyperspace) and a social component (cyberspace). This review argues that cognitive psychologists have a key role to play in the identification and analysis of how the processes of the mind interact with the Web. The body of literature on cognitive processes provides us with knowledge about spatial perceptions, strategies for navigation in space, memory functions and limitations, and the formation of mental representations of environments. Researchers of human cognition can offer established methodologies and conceptual frameworks toward investigation of the cognitions involved in the use of electronic environments like the Web.