Shy maps in topology (Q1637109)

In [J. Math. Imaging Vis. 22, No. 1, 19--26 (2005; Zbl 1383.68090)], the author of the paper under review introduced the concept of a shy map in digital topology. In this paper the author defines an analogous concept for topological spaces: a continuous map is shy if the preimage of each path-connected subset is path-connected. This paper presents basic properties of such maps. It is proved that continuous shy surjections between semilocally simply connected spaces induce surjections on fundamental groups. There are several results describing how shy maps are preserved by wedges and products. At the end there are several results concerning shy maps into \(\mathbb{R}\): a map from an interval to \(\mathbb{R}\) is shy iff it is monotone non-decreasing or monotone non-increasing; the only shy functions \(S^1 \to \mathbb{R}\) are constant functions; and a result concerning shy maps \(X \to \mathbb{R}\), where \(X\) has a cut-point.