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2013 | Buch

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Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space

New Perspectives on Geographic Information Research

herausgegeben von: Martin Raubal, David M. Mark, Andrew U. Frank

Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Buchreihe : Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

20 years ago, from July 8 to 20, 1990, 60 researchers gathered for two weeks at Castillo-Palacio Magalia in Las Navas del Marques (Avila Province, Spain) to discuss cognitive and linguistic aspects of geographic space. This meeting was the start of successful research on cognitive issues in geographic information science, produced an edited book (D. M. Mark and A. U. Frank, Eds., 1991, Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space. NATO ASI Series D: Behavioural and Social Sciences 63. Kluwer, Dordrecht/Boston/London), and led to a biannual conference (COSIT), a refereed journal (Spatial Cognition and Computation), and a substantial and still growing research community.

It appeared worthwhile to assess the achievements and to reconsider the research challenges twenty years later. What has changed in the age of computational ontologies and cyber-infrastructures? Consider that 1990 the web was only about to emerge and the very first laptops had just appeared! The 2010 meeting brought together many of the original participants, but was also open to others, and invited contributions from all who are researching these topics. Early-career scientists, engineers, and humanists working at the intersection of cognitive science and geographic information science were invited to help with the re-assessment of research needs and approaches.

The meeting was very successful and compared the research agenda laid out in the 1990 book with achievements over the past twenty years and then turned to the future: What are the challenges today? What are worthwhile goals for basic research? What can be achieved in the next 20 years? What are the lessons learned?

This edited book will assess the current state of the field through chapters by participants in the 1990 and 2010 meetings and will also document an interdisciplinary research agenda for the future.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Researching Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space: Las Navas Then and Now

Abstract

This chapter provides an introduction to this book on Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space—New Perspectives on Geographic Information Research. As background we provide historical information for the Las Navas 1990 meeting and citation statistics regarding the resulting book and its chapters. We also review the major intellectual influences on our field at that time from different perspectives and compare them to what we have learned over the two decades since then. This chapter finishes with a brief outlook on future research and summaries of the remaining chapters of the book.

Andrew U. Frank, David Mark, Martin Raubal

Spatial Computing

How Spatial Structures Replace Computational Effort

Abstract

At the Advanced Study Institute on Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space in Las Navas del Marqués in July 1990, I presented a chapter on Qualitative Spatial Reasoning. In that chapter, I suggested that spatial inference engines might provide the basis for rather general cognitive capabilities inside and outside the spatial domain. In the present chapter, I will follow up on this perspective and I will illustrate the ways in which research in spatial cognition has progressed towards understanding spatial reasoning and spatial computing in a more literal sense: using a spatial substrate. The chapter presents a progression of approaches to spatial reasoning from purely descriptive to increasingly spatially structured. It demonstrates how spatial structures are capable of replacing computational processes. It discusses how these approaches could be developed and implemented in a way that may help us to better understand higher-level spatial abilities of cognitive systems that are frequently attributed to the right cerebral hemisphere in humans. The chapter concludes by discussing the special role of space and time for cognition and advocates a thorough overall analysis of the specific problem to be solved to identify the most suitable approach to computation.

Christian Freksa

The Cognitive Development of the Spatial Concepts NEXT, NEAR, AWAY and FAR

Abstract

Previous research on the cognitive development of locatives by English speakers, spatial concepts such as in, on, between, over and across has focused primarily on young children’s understanding of relatively few locatives and only in small-scale spaces. Subsequently, these studies provide limited insight into the comprehension of locatives in general, the results are relevant to spatial relationships in only one spatial context, the studies provide little data about the development of spatial concept understanding beyond the childhood, and they therefore do not adequately address the relationship between spatial developmental theory and spatial concept understanding. In response, we examined the use of locatives in two spatial contexts: a tabletop layout and a large model space. Child (3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 years-old) and adult (control) participants placed, according to various instructions, objects within one of the two model spaces. This chapter focuses on one aspect of this study: locatives that have implicit reference to distance. We specifically explore the locatives NEXT, NEAR, AWAY and FAR in two spatial contexts. Results indicate that spatial context influences people’s conceptions of locatives.

Scott Freundschuh, Mark Blades

From Compasses and Maps to Mountains and Territories: Experimental Results on Geographic Cognitive Categorization

Abstract

The present study is part of the general effort to explore commonsense conceptualizations of the geospatial domain in order to deal with the massive access and use of geographic information by different groups of people. The chapter focuses on the perception and cognitive categorization of geographic entities. A basic working assumption is that although the surrounding geographic world has a real structure, there are differences in the way this structure is perceived and conceptualized by different individuals. The present study builds upon a series of experiments in order to provide a comparative investigation of the influence of two factors on geographic categorization: (a) language and (b) expertise.

Leda Giannakopoulou, Marinos Kavouras, Margarita Kokla, David Mark

Prospects and Challenges of Landmarks in Navigation Services

Abstract

In the past decades, empirical research has established the importance of landmarks in our understanding of and communication about space. These findings have led to the development of several computational approaches for the automatic identification and integration of landmarks in navigation instructions. However, so far this research has failed to make any impact on commercial services. This chapter will discuss reasons for this failure. It will develop a categorization of existing approaches and highlight their shortcomings. Finally, principles and methods of user-generated content will be identified as a promising, feasible way forward to future landmark-based navigation services.

Kai-Florian Richter

Landmarks and a Hiking Ontology to Support Wayfinding in a National Park During Different Seasons

Abstract

This chapter describes the results of an empirical study aiming to provide additional knowledge on human verbal descriptions of routes and landmarks. The purpose of the present study is also to provide a theoretical basis for the design and implementation of our terrain navigator — a Location Based Service (LBS) for hikers. The central question regarding a terrain navigator concerns what kinds of spatial concepts and terms people use when hiking, and whether the concepts and terms are different from previous studies on route descriptions that have mostly been carried out in urban environments. We are also interested in what kind of role the seasons play in navigating; whether we would need remarkably different navigational instructions during winter compared to summertime. Altogether ten subjects participated in our thinking aloud experiment during summer conditions and another ten during snowy winter conditions. The landmarks were included in most of the propositions (79 % in the summer and 70 % in the winter). The analyzed propositions were classified into landmark groups and formalized as a hiking ontology, that also covers modalities. The results of this empirical study emphasize the role of landmarks in wayfinding when hiking during both summer and winter.

Tiina Sarjakoski, Pyry Kettunen, Hanna-Marika Halkosaari, Mari Laakso, Mikko Rönneberg, Hanna Stigmar, Tapani Sarjakoski

Talking About Place Where it Matters

Abstract

This chapter poses questions towards a smart geographic communication: What is required to allow a person to talk to a machine in a natural way about geographic space, without learning a particular interface or structured form of dialog? And can the machine respond in a manner that a person would accept as human-like communication in its capacity of considering context? Where are the gaps in our current knowledge, for example as implemented in current systems, and where is more research needed?

Stephan Winter, Marie Truelove

Many to Many Mobile Maps

Abstract

The rapid development of mobile computing devices along with a variety of Web 2.0 social networking tools has led to a dramatic change in the way maps and other spatial displays are utilized. The evolution from stand-alone desktop GIS to the interactive, mobile devices, in which information from one or more sources and is sent to one or more sinks, is discussed. The result is access to real-time information, which is generated from both traditional sources, social networks, and other specialized geowikis. Both the benefits of many to many mobile maps and the emergence of new problems, such as understanding the needs of the user and providing appropriate context, are discussed.

Stephen C. Hirtle, Martin Raubal

Cognitive and Linguistic Ideas in Geographic Information Semantics

Abstract

This chapter reviews ideas, rooted mostly in cognitive science and linguistics, to deal with semantics of geographic information. It discusses the following notions, dating roughly from the time between the two Las Navas meetings of 1990 and 2010: experiential realism, geographic information atoms, semantic reference systems, semantic datum, similarity measurement, conceptual spaces, meaning as process, and constraining the process of meaning. It shows why and how these ideas have been productive for semantics research and what future research they suggest.

Werner Kuhn

Spatial Relation Predicates in Topographic Feature Semantics

Abstract

Topographic data are designed and widely used for base maps of diverse applications, yet the power of these information sources largely relies on the interpretive skills of map readers and relational database expert users once the data are in map or geographic information system (GIS) form. Advances in geospatial semantic technology offer data model alternatives for explicating concepts and articulating complex data queries and statements. To understand and enrich the vocabulary of topographic feature properties for semantic technology, English language spatial relation predicates were analyzed in three standard topographic feature glossaries. The analytical approach drew from disciplinary concepts in geography, linguistics, and information science. Five major classes of spatial relation predicates were identified from the analysis; representations for most of these are not widely available. The classes are: part-whole (which are commonly modeled throughout semantic and linked-data networks), geometric, processes, human intention, and spatial prepositions. These are commonly found in the ‘real world’ and support the environmental science basis for digital topographical mapping. The spatial relation concepts are based on sets of relation terms presented in this chapter, though these lists are not prescriptive or exhaustive. The results of this study make explicit the concepts forming a broad set of spatial relation expressions, which in turn form the basis for expanding the range of possible queries for topographical data analysis and mapping.

Dalia E. Varanka, Holly K. Caro

The Egenhofer–Cohn Hypothesis or, Topological Relativity?

Abstract

In this chapter, we provide an overview of research on cognitively validating qualitative calculi, focusing on the region connection calculus (RCC) and Egenhofer’s intersection models (IM). These topological theories are often claimed to be foundational to spatial cognition, a concept we term the Egenhofer–Cohn Hypothesis. (The authors are aware of the limitations of the chosen title/term. Neither Egenhofer nor Cohn necessarily support this claim in a strong form but they kindly agreed to have their names used here. Additionally, there are other approaches to topology, Cohn is the third author on the classic RCC paper, and Egenhofer published his work with co-authors. However, we feel that these two names best summarize the two most prominent topological theories in the spatial sciences.) We have been particularly interested in extending existing approaches into the realm of spatio-temporal representation and reasoning. We provide an overview on a series of experiments that we conducted to shed light on geographic event conceptualization and topology’s role in modeling and explaining cognitive behavior. Our framework also incorporates approaches to visually analyze cognitive behavior, allowing for interactive and in-depth analyses of cognitive conceptualizations. We present tangible results that can be distilled from generalizing from several experiments. These results show that the strong version of the Egenhofer–Cohn Hypothesis is not supported by all results; we suggest amendments to topological relationship specifications that are needed to serve as a sufficient basis for bridging formal and observed human spatial cognitive processes. We term this approach topological relativity.

Alexander Klippel, Rui Li, Jinlong Yang, Frank Hardisty, Sen Xu

Twenty Years of Topological Logic

Abstract

Topological logics are formal systems for representing and manipulating information about the topological relationships between objects in space. Over the past two decades, these logics have been the subject of intensive research in Artificial Intelligence, under the general rubric of Qualitative Spatial Reasoning. This chapter sets out the mathematical foundations of topological logics, and surveys some of their many surprising properties.

Ian Pratt-Hartmann

Reasoning on Class Relations: An Overview

Abstract

Class relations are used whenever the semantics of entire classes are described, independently of single entities. This chapter focuses on class relations that define cardinality restrictions for a certain instance relation (e.g., a topological relation) between all entities of the involved classes. Typical examples are spatial semantic integrity constraints or ontologies of geospatial entity classes. Reasoning on such class relations allows for the detection of inconsistencies and redundancies in sets of class relations. Therefore the logical properties of the applied instance relations and those of the cardinality restrictions have to be considered, in particular symmetry and compositions, but also other inferences. The chapter provides a summary of research and a discussion of open issues for future work on class relation reasoning.

Stephan Mäs

Creating Perceptually Salient Animated Displays of Spatiotemporal Coordination in Events

Abstract

Geographic phenomena exist within a multi-dimensional space–time continuum. Dynamic geographic phenomena at all levels of scale can be conceptualized and represented as spatiotemporal patterns, space–time processes, or events—changes within or between objects that are experienced as bounded by psychologically discreet beginnings and ends. Humans rarely care about spatiotemporal entities in isolation. Visualization and analysis approaches that focus on individual spatiotemporal phenomena in isolation are likely doomed to failure because they miss the relational structure humans use to process and reason about events. We contend that a static and geometric decompositional approach to spatiotemporal patterns and processes limits the tools that can be applied to a broad class of spatiotemporal data that are important to users. This class includes events where there is a spatiotemporal coordination among or within objects, such as a car changing its movement direction because of an approaching car, or a hurricane not making landfall because of changing atmospheric conditions. Often such coordination allows inferences about causal relations among the components of an event. In this chapter we argue for the need for perceptually salient and cognitively inspired animated displays that help humans more effectively and efficiently detect relationships in complex events.

Thomas F. Shipley, Sara Irina Fabrikant, Anna-Katharina Lautenschütz

Exploring and Reasoning About Perceptual Spaces for Theatre, New Media Installations and the Performing Arts

Abstract

This work extends earlier efforts to develop perceptual models to support qualitative spatial reasoning. Earlier work by the same team led to the development of powerful visual and proximity models. We discuss these models and their use to support analysis and design of theatrical productions. This analysis highlights a significant feature lacking from these models—the ability to model soundscapes. A new model is presented that addresses this lack—the model draws on the Huygen’s Principle of Wave Propagation to supplement the earlier models with a component that handles sound. The resultant segmentation of space is presented via a worked out example. Then, as a way of testing the relevancy and power of the new model, an artistic presentation was designed and presented to the conference. Using Homer’s Odyssey to provide the narrative structure, a 22-minute real-time performance involving dozens of virtual sound sources moving around in space was constructed, supported by in-house software developed to handle the manipulation of the audio tracks and virtual sound sources, and interfaced with a Denon 7.1 sound system. The artistic performance consisted of reproducing several virtual sound geographies in a manner consistent with the narrative. The use of a qualitative perceptual model to drive the real-time manipulation of virtual sound sources is, to our knowledge, a first. The artistic presentation served not only to illustrate the use of the model, but also to explore its power and relevancy to design initiatives with the performing arts.

Geoffrey Edwards, Marie Louise Bourbeau, Gérard Ligozat, René Dupéré, David Duguay

Backmatter

Titel: Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space
herausgegeben von: Martin Raubal
David M. Mark
Andrew U. Frank
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-642-34359-9
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-34358-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34359-9