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2009 | Book

A Conceptual Model of the Cognitive Processing of Environmental Distance Information Read chapter Read first chapter

Spatial Information Theory

9th International Conference, COSIT 2009 Aber Wrac’h, France, September 21-25, 2009 Proceedings

Editors: Kathleen Stewart Hornsby, Christophe Claramunt, Michel Denis, Gérard Ligozat

Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Book Series : Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

First established in 1993 with a conference in Elba, Italy, COSIT (the International C- ference on Spatial Information Theory) is widely acknowledged as one of the most - portant conferences for the field of spatial information theory. This conference series brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplines for intensive scientific - changes centered on spatial information theory. COSIT submissions typically address research questions drawn from cognitive, perceptual, and environmental psychology, geography, spatial information science, computer science, artificial intelligence, cog- tive science, engineering, cognitive anthropology, linguistics, ontology, architecture, planning, and environmental design. Some of the topical areas include, for example, the cognitive structure of spatial knowledge; events and processes in geographic space; incomplete or imprecise spatial knowledge; languages of spatial relations; navigation by organisms and robots; ontology of space; communication of spatial information; and the social and cultural organization of space to name a few. This volume contains the papers presented at the 9th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory, COSIT 2009, held in Aber Wrac’h, France, September 21–25, 2009. For COSIT 2009, 70 full paper submissions were received. These papers were carefully reviewed by an international Program Committee based on relevance to the conference, intellectual quality, scientific significance, novelty, relation to previously published literature, and clarity of presentation. After reviewing was completed, 30 papers were selected for presentation at the conference and appear in this volume. This number of papers reflects the high quality of submissions to COSIT this year.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Cognitive Processing and Models for Spatial Cognition

A Conceptual Model of the Cognitive Processing of Environmental Distance Information
Abstract
I review theories and research on the cognitive processing of environmental distance information by humans, particularly that acquired via direct experience in the environment. The cognitive processes I consider for acquiring and thinking about environmental distance information include working-memory, nonmediated, hybrid, and simple-retrieval processes. Based on my review of the research literature, and additional considerations about the sources of distance information and the situations in which it is used, I propose an integrative conceptual model to explain the cognitive processing of distance information that takes account of the plurality of possible processes and information sources, and describes conditions under which particular processes and sources are likely to operate. The mechanism of summing vista distances is identified as widely important in situations with good visual access to the environment. Heuristics based on time, effort, or other information are likely to play their most important role when sensory access is restricted.
Daniel R. Montello
Spatial Cognition of Geometric Figures in the Context of Proportional Analogies
Abstract
The cognition of spatial objects differs among people and is highly influenced by the context in which a spatial object is perceived. We investigated experimentally how humans perceive geometric figures in geometric proportional analogies and discovered that subjects perceive structures within the figures which are suitable for solving the analogy. Humans do not perceive the elements within a figure individually or separately, but cognize the figure as a structured whole. Furthermore, the perception of each figure in the series of analogous figures is influenced by the context of the whole analogy. A computational model which shall reflect human cognition of geometric figures must be flexible enough to adapt the representation of a geometric figure and produce a similarly structured representation as humans do while solving the analogy. Furthermore, it must be able to take into account the context, i.e. structures and transformations in other geometric figures in the analogy.
Angela Schwering, Kai-Uwe Kühnberger, Ulf Krumnack, Helmar Gust
Are Places Concepts? Familarity and Expertise Effects in Neighborhood Cognition
Abstract
Named urban neighborhoods (localities) are often examples of vague place extents. These are compared with current knowledge of vagueness in concepts and categories within semantic memory, implying graded membership and typicality. If places are mentally constructed and used like concepts, this might account for their cognitive variability, and help us choose suitable geospatial (GIS) data models. An initial within-subjects study with expert geographic surveyors tested specific predictions about the role of central tendency, ideals, context specificity, familiarity and expertise in location judgements – theoretically equivalent to categorization. Implications for spatial data models and a further research agenda are suggested.
Clare Davies

Semantic Modeling

A Metric Conceptual Space Algebra
Abstract
The modeling of concepts from a cognitive perspective is important for designing spatial information systems that interoperate with human users. Concept representations that are built using geometric and topological conceptual space structures are well suited for semantic similarity and concept combination operations. In addition, concepts that are more closely grounded in the physical world, such as many spatial concepts, have a natural fit with the geometric structure of conceptual spaces. Despite these apparent advantages, conceptual spaces are underutilized because existing formalizations of conceptual space theory have focused on individual aspects of the theory rather than the creation of a comprehensive algebra. In this paper we present a metric conceptual space algebra that is designed to facilitate the creation of conceptual space knowledge bases and inferencing systems. Conceptual regions are represented as convex polytopes and context is built in as a fundamental element. We demonstrate the applicability of the algebra to spatial information systems with a proof-of-concept application.
Benjamin Adams, Martin Raubal
Grounding Geographic Categories in the Meaningful Environment
Abstract
Ontologies are a common approach to improve semantic interoperability by explicitly specifying the vocabulary used by a particular information community. Complex expressions are defined in terms of primitive ones. This shifts the problem of semantic interoperability to the problem of how to ground primitive symbols. One approach are semantic datums, which determine reproducible mappings (measurement scales) from observable structures to symbols. Measurement theory offers a formal basis for such mappings. From an ontological point of view, this leaves two important questions unanswered. Which qualities provide semantic datums? How are these qualities related to the primitive entities in our ontology? Based on a scenario from hydrology, we first argue that human or technical sensors implement semantic datums, and secondly that primitive symbols are definable from the meaningful environment,a formalized quality space established through such sensors.
Simon Scheider, Krzysztof Janowicz, Werner Kuhn
Terabytes of Tobler: Evaluating the First Law in a Massive, Domain-Neutral Representation of World Knowledge
Abstract
The First Law of Geography states, “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.” Despite the fact that it is to a large degree what makes “spatial special,” the law has never been empirically evaluated on a large, domain-neutral representation of world knowledge. We address the gap in the literature about this critical idea by statistically examining the multitude of entities and relations between entities present across 22 different language editions of Wikipedia. We find that, at least according to the myriad authors of Wikipedia, the First Law is true to an overwhelming extent regardless of language-defined cultural domain.
Brent Hecht, Emily Moxley

Spatial Reasoning

Merging Qualitative Constraint Networks Defined on Different Qualitative Formalisms
Abstract
This paper addresses the problem of merging qualitative constraint networks (QCNs) defined on different qualitative formalisms. Our model is restricted to formalisms where the entities and the relationships between these entities are defined on the same domain. The method is an upstream step to a previous framework dealing with a set of QCNs defined on the same formalism. It consists of translating the input QCNs into a well-chosen common formalism. Two approaches are investigated: in the first one, each input QCN is translated to an equivalent QCN; in the second one, the QCNs are translated to approximations. These approaches take advantage of two dual notions that we introduce, the ones of refinement and abstraction between qualitative formalisms.
Jean-François Condotta, Souhila Kaci, Pierre Marquis, Nicolas Schwind
Semi-automated Derivation of Conceptual Neighborhood Graphs of Topological Relations
Abstract
Conceptual neighborhood graphs are similarity-based schemata of spatial/temporal relations. This paper proposes a semi-automated method for deriving a conceptual neighborhood graph of topological relations, which shows all pairs of relations between which a smooth transformation can be performed. The method is applicable to various sets of topological relations distinguished by the 9+-intersection. The method first identifies possible primitive-level transitions, combines those primitive-level transitions, and removes invalid combinations that do not satisfy some necessary conditions. As a demonstration, we develop conceptual neighborhood graphs of topological region-region relations in ℝ2, \(\mathbb {S}^2\) , and ℝ3 , topological relations between a directed line and a region in ℝ2 , and Allen’s interval relations.
Yohei Kurata
Exploiting Qualitative Spatial Constraints for Multi-hypothesis Topological Map Learning
Abstract
Topological maps are graph-based representations of space and have been considered as an alternative to metric representations in the context of robot navigation. In this work, we seek to improve on the lack of robustness of current topological mapping systems against ambiguity in the available information about the environment. For this purpose, we develop a topological mapping system that tracks multiple graph hypotheses simultaneously. The feasibility of the overall approach depends on a reduction of the search space by exploiting spatial constraints. We here consider qualitative direction information and the assumption that the map has to be planar. Qualitative spatial reasoning techniques are used to check the satisfiability of individual hypotheses. We evaluate the effects of absolute and relative direction information using relations from two different qualitative spatial calculi and combine the approach with a topological mapping system based on Voronoi graphs realized on a real robot.
Jan Oliver Wallgrün
Comparing Relations with a Multi-holed Region
Abstract
Relation models have treated multi-holed regions relations either the same as hole-free regions relations, loosing this way the peculiarities of the holed topology, or with methods dependent on the number of holes. This paper discusses a model of relations between a hole-free and a multi-holed region that departs from past approaches by using the frequencies of the relations in which the holes participate to summarize the relation. The model is independent of the number of holes and builds on the 23 topological relations between a hole-free and a single-holed region. With the help of a balanced algorithm the relation model is used in a method that compares relations for their topological similarity, by computing the cost of transforming one relation into the other. The placement of the holes in relation to the hole-free region is found to be of same importance as the placement of the host of the holes, for similarity comparisons.
Maria Vasardani, Max J. Egenhofer

Spatial Cognition

The Endpoint Hypothesis: A Topological-Cognitive Assessment of Geographic Scale Movement Patterns
Abstract
Movement patterns of individual entities at the geographic scale are becoming a prominent research focus in spatial sciences. One pertinent question is how cognitive and formal characterizations of movement patterns relate. In other words, are (mostly qualitative) formal characterizations cognitively adequate? This article experimentally evaluates movement patterns that can be characterized as paths through a conceptual neighborhood graph, that is, two extended spatial entities changing their topological relationship gradually. The central questions addressed are: (a) Do humans naturally use topology to create cognitive equivalent classes, that is, is topology the basis for categorizing movement patterns spatially? (b) Are ‘all’ topological relations equally salient, and (c) does language influence categorization. The first two questions are addressed using a modification of the endpoint hypothesis stating that: movement patterns are distinguished by the topological relation they end in. The third question addresses whether language has an influence on the classification of movement patterns, that is, whether there is a difference between linguistic and non-linguistic category construction. In contrast to our previous findings we were able to document the importance of topology for conceptualizing movement patterns but also reveal differences in the cognitive saliency of topological relations. The latter aspect calls for a weighted conceptual neighborhood graph to cognitively adequately model human conceptualization processes.
Alexander Klippel, Rui Li
Evaluating the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Visual Variables for Geographic Information Visualization
Abstract
We propose an empirical, perception-based evaluation approach for assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of longstanding cartographic design principles applied to 2D map displays. The approach includes bottom-up visual saliency models that are compared with eye-movement data collected in human-subject experiments on map stimuli embedded in the so-called flicker paradigm. The proposed methods are applied to the assessment of four commonly used visual variables for designing 2D maps: size, color value, color hue, and orientation. The empirical results suggest that the visual variable size is the most efficient (fastest) and most effective (accurate) visual variable to detect change under flicker conditions. The visual variable orientation proved to be the least efficient and effective of the tested visual variables. These empirical results shed new light on the implied ranking of the visual variables that have been proposed over 40 years ago. With the presented approach we hope to provide cartographers, GIScientists and visualization designers a systematic assessment method to develop effective and efficient geovisualization displays.
Simone Garlandini, Sara Irina Fabrikant
SeaTouch: A Haptic and Auditory Maritime Environment for Non Visual Cognitive Mapping of Blind Sailors
Abstract
Navigating consists of coordinating egocentric and allocentric spatial frames of reference. Virtual environments have afforded researchers in the spatial community with tools to investigate the learning of space. The issue of the transfer between virtual and real situations is not trivial. A central question is the role of frames of reference in mediating spatial knowledge transfer to external surroundings, as is the effect of different sensory modalities accessed in simulated and real worlds. This challenges the capacity of blind people to use virtual reality to explore a scene without graphics. The present experiment involves a haptic and auditory maritime virtual environment. In triangulation tasks, we measure systematic errors and preliminary results show an ability to learn configurational knowledge and to navigate through it without vision. Subjects appeared to take advantage of getting lost in an egocentric “haptic” view in the virtual environment to improve performances in the real environment.
Mathieu Simonnet, Dan Jacobson, Stephane Vieilledent, Jacques Tisseau

Spatial Knowledge

Assigning Footprints to Dot Sets: An Analytical Survey
Abstract
While the generation of a shape, or footprint, from a set of points has been widely investigated, there has been no systematic overview of the field, with the result that there is no principled basis for comparing the methods used or selecting the best method for a particular application. In this paper we present a systematic classification of footprints, algorithms used for their generation, and the types of applications they can be used for. These classifications can be used to evaluate the suitability of different algorithms for different applications. With each algorithm is associated a vector of nine values classifying the footprints it can produce against a standard list of criteria, and a similar vector is associated with each application type to classify the footprints it requires. A discussion of, and a method for, the assessment of the suitability of an algorithm for an application is presented.
Maximillian Dupenois, Antony Galton
Mental Tectonics - Rendering Consistent μMaps
Abstract
The visualization of spatial information for wayfinding assistance requires a substantial amount of display area. Depending on the particular route, even large screens can be insufficient to visualize all information at once and in a scale such that users can understand the specific course of the route and its spatial context. Personalized wayfinding maps, such as μMaps are a possible solution for small displays: they explicitly consider the prior knowledge of a user with the environment and tailor maps toward it. The resulting schematic maps require substantially less space due to the knowledge based visual information reduction. In this paper we extend and improve the underlying algorithms of μMaps to enable efficient handling of fragmented user profiles as well as the mapping of fragmented maps. Furthermore we introduce the concept of mental tectonics, a process that harmonizes mental conceptual spatial representations with entities of a geographic frame of reference.
Falko Schmid
To Be and Not To Be: 3-Valued Relations on Graphs
Abstract
Spatial information requires models which allow us to answer ‘maybe’ to questions asking whether a location lies within a region. At the same time, models must account for data at varying levels of detail. Existing theories of fuzzy relations and fuzzy graphs do not support notions of granularity that generalize the successes of rough set theory to rough and fuzzy graphs. This paper presents a new notion of three-valued relation on graphs based on a generalization of the usual concept of three-valued relation on sets. This type of relation is needed to understand granularity for graphs.
John G. Stell
Map Algebraic Characterization of Self-adapting Neighborhoods
Abstract
A class of map algebraic operations referred to as “focal” characterizes every location as a function of the geometry and/or attribute of all locations that belong to the “neighborhood” of that location. This paper introduces a new type of map algebraic neighborhood whose shape is unspecified but required to have a specified size. This paper explores how the use of such neighborhoods affects the design of focal operations, as well as their implementation and application. It is suggested that the proposed operations can contribute to site selection analyses, which are often subject to size restriction (e.g. due to limited budgets or environmental concerns), but needs more theoretical investigation for them to be fully operational in practice.
Takeshi Shirabe

Scene and Visibility Modeling

Scene Modelling and Classification Using Learned Spatial Relations
Abstract
This paper describes a method for building visual scene models from video data using quantized descriptions of motion. This method enables us to make meaningful statements about video scenes as a whole (such as “this video is like that video”) and about regions within these scenes (such as “this part of this scene is similar to this part of that scene”). We do this through unsupervised clustering of simple yet novel motion descriptors, which provide a quantized representation of gross motion within scene regions. Using these we can characterise the dominant patterns of motion, and then group spatial regions based upon both proximity and local motion similarity to define areas or regions with particular motion characteristics. We are able to process scenes in which objects are difficult to detect and track due to variable frame-rate, video quality or occlusion, and we are able to identify regions which differ by usage but which do not differ by appearance (such as frequently used paths across open space). We demonstrate our method on 50 videos making up very different scene types: indoor scenarios with unpredictable unconstrained motion, junction scenes, road and path scenes, and open squares or plazas. We show that these scenes can be clustered using our representation, and that the incorporation of learned spatial relations into the representation enables us to cluster more effectively.
Hannah M. Dee, David C. Hogg, Anthony G. Cohn
A Qualitative Approach to Localization and Navigation Based on Visibility Information
Abstract
In this paper we describe a model for navigation of an autonomous agent in which localization, path planning, and locomotion is performed in a qualitative manner instead of relying on exact coordinates. Our approach is grounded in a decomposition of navigable space based on a novel model of visibility and occlusion relations between extended objects for agents with very limited sensor abilities. A graph representation reflecting the adjacency between the regions of the decomposition is used as a topological map of the environment. The visibility-based representation can be constructed autonomously by the agent and navigation can be performed by simple reactive navigation behaviors. Moreover, the representation is well-qualified to be shared between multiple agents.
Paolo Fogliaroni, Jan Oliver Wallgrün, Eliseo Clementini, Francesco Tarquini, Diedrich Wolter
Showing Where To Go by Maps or Pictures: An Empirical Case Study at Subway Exits
Abstract
This study empirically examined the effectiveness of different methods of presenting route information on a mobile navigation sysyem, for accurate and effortless orientation at subway exits. Specifically, it compared participants’ spatial orientation performance with pictures and maps, in relation to the levels of their spatial ability. Participants identified the directions toward the goals after coming onto the ground faster when viewing pictures than when viewing maps. Spatial orientation with maps was more difficult than that with pictures at exits where body rotation was necessary, especially for people with low mental-rotation ability. In contrast, pictures were equally effective for people with low and high mental-rotation ability. Reasons for the effectiveness of pictures and possibilities of using other presentation formats are discussed.
Toru Ishikawa, Tetsuo Yamazaki

Spatial Modeling

The Abduction of Geographic Information Science: Transporting Spatial Reasoning to the Realm of Purpose and Design
Abstract
People intuitively understand that function and purpose are critical parts of what human-configured entities are about, but these notions have proved difficult to capture formally. Even though most geographical landscapes bear traces of human purposes, visibly expressed in the spatial configurations meant to serve these purposes, the capability of GIS to represent means-ends relationships and to support associated reasoning and queries is currently quite limited. This is because spatial thinking as examined and codified in geographic information science is overwhelmingly of the descriptive, analytic kind that underlies traditional science, where notions of means and ends play a negligible role. This paper argues for the need to expand the reach of formalized spatial thinking to also encompass the normative, synthetic kinds of reasoning characterizing planning, engineering and the design sciences in general. Key elements in a more comprehensive approach to spatial thinking would be the inclusion of abductive modes of inference along with the deductive and inductive ones, and the development of an expanded geographic ontology that integrates analysis and synthesis, form and function, landscape and purpose, description and design.
Helen Couclelis
An Algebraic Approach to Image Schemas for Geographic Space
Abstract
Formal models of geographic space should support reasoning about its static and dynamic properties, its objects, their behaviors, and the relationships between them. Image schemas, used to embody spatiotemporal experiential abstractions, capture high-level perceptual concepts but do not have generally accepted formalizations. This paper provides a method for formally representing topological and physical image schemas using Milner’s bigraphical models. Bigraphs, capable of independently representing mobile locality and connectivity, provide formal algebraic specifications of geographic environments enhanced by intuitive visual representations. Using examples from a built environment, we define topological schemas CONTAINER and LINK as static bigraph components, dynamic schemas INTO and LINKTO as rule-based changes in static components, and more complex schemas REMOVAL_OF_RESTRAINT and BLOCKAGE with sequences of rules. Finally, we demonstrate that bigraphs can be used to describe scenes with incomplete information, and that we can adjust the granularity of scenes by using bigraph composition to provide additional context.
Lisa Walton, Michael Worboys
Spatio-terminological Inference for the Design of Ambient Environments
Abstract
We present an approach to assist the smart environment design process by means of automated validation of work-in-progress designs. The approach facilitates validation of not only the purely structural requirements, but also the functional requirements expected of a smart environment whilst keeping in mind the plethora of sensory and interactive devices embedded within such an environment. The approach, founded in spatio-terminological reasoning, is illustrated in the context of formal ontology modeling constructs and reasoners, industrial architecture data standards and state-of-the-art commercial design software.
Mehul Bhatt, Frank Dylla, Joana Hois

Events and Processes

Defining Spatial Entropy from Multivariate Distributions of Co-occurrences
Abstract
Finding geographical patterns by analysing the spatial configuration distribution of events, objects or their attributes has a long history in geography, ecology and epidemiology. Measuring the presence of patterns, clusters, or comparing the spatial organisation for different attributes, symbols within the same map or for different maps, is often the basis of analysis. Landscape ecology has provided a long list of interesting indicators, e.g. summaries of patch size distribution. Looking at content information, the Shannon entropy is also a measure of a distribution providing insight into the organisation of data, and has been widely used for example in economical geography. Unfortunately, using the Shannon entropy on the bare distribution of categories within the spatial domain does not describe the spatial organisation itself. Particularly in ecology and geography, some authors have proposed integrating some spatial aspects into the entropy: using adjacency properties or distances between and within categories. This paper goes further with adjacency, emphasising the use of co-occurences of categories at multiple orders, the adjacency being seen as a particular co-occurence of order 2 with a distance of collocation null, and proposes a spatial entropy measure framework. The approach allows multivariate data with covariates to be accounted for, and provides the flexibility to design a wide range of spatial interaction models between the attributes. Generating a multivariate multinomial distribution of collocations describing the spatial organisation, allows the interaction to be assessed via an entropy formula. This spatial entropy is dependent on the distance of collocation used, which can be seen as a scale factor in the spatial organisation to be analysed.
Didier G. Leibovici
Case-Based Reasoning for Eliciting the Evolution of Geospatial Objects
Abstract
This paper proposes an automated approach for describing how geospatial objects evolve. We consider geospatial objects whose boundaries and properties change in the time, and refer to them as evolving objects. Our approach is to provide a set of rules that describe how objects change, referred to as rule-based evolution. We consider the case where we are given a series of snapshots, each of which contains the status of the objects at a given time. Given this data, we would like to extract the rules that describe how these objects changed. We use the technique of case-based reasoning (CBR) to extract the rules of object evolution, given a few representatives examples. The resulting rules are used to elicit the full history of all changes in these objects. This allows finding out how objects evolved, recovering their history. As an example of our proposed approach, we include a case study of how deforestation evolves in Brazilian Amazonia Tropical Forest.
Joice Seleme Mota, Gilberto Câmara, Maria Isabel Sobral Escada, Olga Bittencourt, Leila Maria Garcia Fonseca, Lúbia Vinas
Composing Models of Geographic Physical Processes
Abstract
Processes are central for geographic information science; yet geographic information systems (GIS) lack capabilities to represent process related information. A prerequisite to including processes in GIS software is a general method to describe geographic processes independently of application disciplines. This paper presents such a method, namely a process description language. The vocabulary of the process description language is derived formally from mathematical models. Physical processes in geography can be described in two equivalent languages: partial differential equations or partial difference equations, where the latter can be shown graphically and used as a method for application specialists to enter their process models. The vocabulary of the process description language comprises components for describing the general behavior of prototypical geographic physical processes. These process components can be composed by basic models of geographic physical processes, which is shown by means of an example.
Barbara Hofer, Andrew U. Frank

Route Planning

Decentralized Time Geography for Ad-Hoc Collaborative Planning
Abstract
For an autonomous physical agent, such as a moving robot or a person with their mobile device, performing a task in a spatio-temporal environment often requires interaction with other agents. In this paper we study ad-hoc collaborative planning between these autonomous peers. We introduce the notion of decentralized time geography, which differs from the traditional time-geographic framework by taking into account limited local knowledge. This allows agents to perform a space-time analysis within a time-geographic framework that represents local knowledge in a distributed environment as required for ad-hoc coordinated action between agents in physical space. More specifically, we investigate the impact of general agent movement, replacement seeking, and location and goal-directed behavior of the initiating agent on the outcome of the collaborative planning. Empirical tests in a multi-agent simulation framework provide both a proof of concept and specific results for different combinations of agent density and communication radius.
Martin Raubal, Stephan Winter, Christopher Dorr
Adaptable Path Planning in Regionalized Environments
Abstract
Human path planning relies on several more aspects than only geometric distance between two locations. These additional aspects mostly relate to the complexity of the traveled path. Accordingly, in recent years several cognitively motivated path search algorithms have been developed that try to minimize wayfinding complexity. However, the calculated paths may result in large detours as geometric properties of the network wayfinding occurs in are ignored. Simply adding distance as an additional factor to the cost function is a possible, but insufficient way of dealing with this problem. Instead, taking a global view on an environment by accounting for the heterogeneity of its structure allows for adapting the path search strategy. This heterogeneity can be used to regionalize the environment; each emerging region may require a different strategy for path planning. This paper presents such an approach to regionalized path planning. It argues for the advantages of the chosen approach, develops a measure for calculating wayfinding complexity that accounts for structural and functional aspects of wayfinding, and states a generic algorithm for regionalization. Finally, regionalized path planning is demonstrated in a sample scenario.
Kai-Florian Richter
An Analysis of Direction and Motion Concepts in Verbal Descriptions of Route Choices
Abstract
This paper reports on a study analyzing verbal descriptions of route choices collected in the context of two in situ experiments in the cities of Salzburg and Vienna. In the study 7151 propositions from 20 participants describing route choices along four routes directly at decision points (100 decision points in total) are classified and compared to existing studies. Direction and motion concepts are extracted, semantically grouped and ranked by their overall occurrence frequency. A cross-classification of direction and motion concepts exposes frequently used combinations. The paper contributes to a more detailed understanding of situational spatial discourse (primarily in German) by participants being unfamiliar with a way-finding environment. Results contribute to cognitively-motivated spatial decision support systems, especially in the context of pedestrian navigation.
Karl Rehrl, Sven Leitinger, Georg Gartner, Felix Ortag
The Role of Angularity in Route Choice
An Analysis of Motorcycle Courier GPS Traces
Abstract
The paths of 2425 individual motorcycle trips made in London were analyzed in order to uncover the route choice decisions made by drivers. The paths were derived from global positioning system (GPS) data collected by a courier company for each of their drivers, using algorithms developed for the purpose of this paper. Motorcycle couriers were chosen due to the fact that they both know streets very well and that they do not rely on the GPS to guide their navigation. Each trace was mapped to the underlying road network, and two competing hypotheses for route choice decisions were compared: (a) that riders attempt to minimize the Manhattan distance between locations and (b) that they attempt to minimize the angular distance. In each case, the distance actually traveled was compared to the minimum possible either block or angular distance through the road network. It is usually believed that drivers who know streets well will navigate trips that reduce Manhattan distance; however, here it is shown that angularity appears to play an important role in route choice. 63% of trips made took the minimum possible angular distance between origin and destination, while 51% of trips followed the minimum possible block distance. This implies that impact of turns on cognitive distance plays an important role in decision making, even when a driver has good knowledge of the spatial network.
Alasdair Turner
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Spatial Information Theory
Editors
Kathleen Stewart Hornsby
Christophe Claramunt
Michel Denis
Gérard Ligozat
Copyright Year
2009
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Electronic ISBN
978-3-642-03832-7
Print ISBN
978-3-642-03831-0
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03832-7

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