--- title: The Science Of A Great Subway Map description: The Science Of A Great Subway Map image: https://www.pkgbranding.com/hs-fs/file-4101451663-png/blog-files/mongreltechnologyatmit-pkg-300x300.png --- [![PKG Packaging](https://www.pkgbranding.com/hubfs/PKG%20Jan20%20-%20assets/pkg-logo.png) ](https://www.pkgbranding.com/) [![Hangar12](https://www.pkgbranding.com/hubfs/Hanger%20Image/Hanger-12.webp) ](https://www.hangar-12.com/) [312.870.9101](tel:+1.312.870.9101) # Consumer First Insights ## The Science Of A Great Subway Map Written by Kevin Keating at PKG While researchers at MIT have used their new vision science "Mongrel" technology to analyze how people view maps/wayfairing...I can't help but think this could be great learning for retail & packaging. Imagine if you could scan imagery of the store shelves to determine just what your packaging looked like in someone peripheral vision? ![Mongrel Technology at MIT analysizes peripheral vision and can help understand what consumers see](https://www.pkgbranding.com/hs-fs/file-4101451663-png/blog-files/mongreltechnologyatmit-pkg-300x300.png?width=300&height=300&name=mongreltechnologyatmit-pkg-300x300.png) The MIT mongrels draw on new scientific insights into peripheral vision. Research by Rosenholtz and others has suggested that peripheral vision operates by pooling together information outside a person's direct line of sight. These peripheral pools sacrifice detail for overall impression to reduce the amount of data we process; they're a little like a low-resolution JPEG in that sense. So the mongrels effectively show what visual elements--color, text, space, line orientation, among them--have been condensed into pools during the map's journey from eye to brain. "What these mongrels try to capture is this qualitative information about what you lose in the periphery," Lavanya Sharan, a postdoc who collaborated on the work, tells Co.Design. "Looking at these mongrels is a way of confirming the designer's intuition." 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All Rights Reserved ![linkedin](https://dc.ads.linkedin.com/collect/?pid=315946&fmt=gif) ```json { "@context" : "http://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Kevin Keating at PKG" }, "dateModified" : "April 22, 2016, 3:58:49 AM", "datePublished" : "2013-10-31 16:17:00", "description" : "The Science Of A Great Subway Map", "headline" : "The Science Of A Great Subway Map", "image" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/537000/file-4101451663-png/blog-files/mongreltechnologyatmit-pkg-300x300.png" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/537000/PKG-1.png" }, "name" : "PKG Brand Design" } } ```