Function,geometry and spatial prepositions: Three experiments

In this paper the results of three experiments are reported whichaddress the issue of the relative extent to which functionalrelations versus geometric relations affect spatial language. Theexperiments examine the role of a discourse context on the useand rating of the preposition in to describe a visual scenewhere the constraint of spatial containment between figure(object located) and ground (reference object) does not hold. Allthree experiments demonstrate that in is used more andrated to be significantly more appropriate in a functionalcontext than in a no context condition. The implications of thesestudies for spatial language and spatial representation arediscussed.     

The Effect of an Extra Object on the Linguistic Apprehension of the Spatial Relationship between Two Objects

A sentence describing a spatial relationship includes at least two objects: a located object and a reference object. The presence of an extra object in a scene that is recognized as neither a located nor a reference object, reduces the acceptability of spatial terms related to the spatial relationship between reference and located objects under given conditions (Carlson & Logan, 2001). However, it is still unclear how the overall acceptability distribution of a spatial term changes in a scene when an extra object is present in various locations. In this study, we examined this point, using the paired comparison method with Thurstone's law of judgment (Case V). The results showed that an extra object had both relative increase and reduction effects on the overall acceptability distribution of a spatial term. This suggests that our linguistic apprehension of the spatial relationship is biased intricately by the presence of extra objects.     

Verb Semantics Affects the Interpretation of Spatial Prepositions

Abstract

Spatial prepositions, more specifically projective prepositions, such as in front of or behind can be interpreted in different ways. Their interpretation depends on the spatial perspective taken as the basis for determining the reference frame's orientation. In 3 series of placement experiments with German speakers, we examined whether the interpretation of projective prepositions in a motion context is affected by the verb used in a spatial instruction. Results suggest that verb semantics is a factor accounting for previously observed seemingly social-situational differences in the interpretation of projective prepositions. Specifically, the findings indicate that, relative to a car as reference object, the semantic aspect of motion interruption associated with some verbs leads to a higher proportion of deictic interpretations determined by the direction from which one is approaching the car. This verb effect on the interpretation of spatial prepositions can be explained by an activation of the temporal dimension through stop-implying verbs, which is integrated into the spatial situation model of the perceived dynamic scene making the deictic frame of reference more compatible. The experimental evidence also shows that verb semantics can account for previously unexplained cross-linguistic differences, and is related to patterns concerning the prepositional inventory of languages.     

Non-intrusive,three-dimensional temperature and composition measurements inside fluid cells in microgravity using a confocal holography microscope

Application of a confocal scanning laser holography (CSLH) microscope to the study of fluid flow in a microgravity environment is described herein. This microscope offers a new, non-intrusive means to determine three-dimensional density gradients within solid objects, fluids, and plasmas, including flames. The index-of-refraction is determined from the phase measurements of the microscope, which is a function of the object temperature and composition. The object being studied is a fluid-cell chamber, which is heated and cooled on opposing walls to produce a steady-state fluid flow due to convection and heat transfer. The holograms are created from the interference of a “known” reference beam with an “unknown” object beam. A three-dimensional amplitude and phase image of the object is produced by the reconstruction of many holograms, where each hologram represents a scanned point inside the object.     

Space,Language and Ontology: A Response to Davis

Abstract

Ernest Davis' article “Qualititative Spatial Reasoning in Interpreting Text and Narrative” discusses challenges that the interpretation of natural language appears to raise for the formalization of commonsense spatial reasoning. Davis finds these to be of “surprising logical complexity,” but also “erratic” in that they do not show a logical structuring of the problem space that could guide productive research. In this response I argue that much of the apparent lack of structure Davis laments is due to the very style of formal modeling he pursues. By augmenting logical considerations with substantial input from other disciplines and by adopting a heterogeneous and modular approach to formalization, I suggest that the problem space is by no means as ill-structured as Davis presents it.     

Editorial: Cognitive Semantics and Spatio-Temporal Ontologies

How do people describe the location of a target object to another? This task requires a reference object or frame and terms of reference. Traditional linguistic analyses have loosely organized perspectives around people, objects, or environments as reference objects, using reference terms based on a viewpoint or the intrinsic sides of an object, such as left, right, front, and back or based on the environment, such as north, south, east, and west. In actual communication, social, spatial, and cognitive factors may also affect perspective choice. We examine those factors by varying the spatial information (landmarks and cardinal directions), the communication task (relative cognitive burden to speakers and addressees), and the culture of participants (American and Japanese). Speakers used addressees' perspectives more when addressees had the greater cognitive burden. They also used landmarks and cardinal directions when they were available, especially to avoid difficult discriminations like left/right. Some cases appearing to be perspective taking can be interpreted as using a person as a landmark. Finally, terms like near indicating close proximity were preferred to far and to terms requiring projection of directions. Globally, perspective choices of American and Japanese samples were strikingly similar; that is, Japanese did not select addressees' perspectives more than Americans. The traditional linguistic analyses need to be enhanced to account for effects of cognitive, situational, and social factors.     

Geometric structures of frames of reference and natural language semantics

This article aims at formal specifications of reference systems in spatial cognition. It concentrates on two roles of reference systems connected to spatial language: reference systems resolving ambiguities and reference systems forming a basis for the classification of linguistic terms. Although coordinate systems are often seen as candidates for the geometric structure of reference systems, it is shown here that they do not appear in the explanations that go into the details. An analysis of the German terms vor, hinter, rechts and links (in front of, in back of, right, left) presents an alternative model for the geometric structure of spatial reference systems.     

Rhetorical shadows: The conceptual representation of incongruent shadows

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the topic of conceptual representation of shadows. We analyze several examples of contemporary imagery, taken from advertising and cartooning, to shed light on the way shadow depictions are used as rhetorical devices. Instead of being inserted as a natural phenomenon, rhetorical shadows invite the construction of meaning, and instead of being a mere natural companion of their casters, they reveal things about their casters. Three so-called “shadow incongruity types” are distinguished: (1) shadows revealing the “true nature” of their caster or the “hidden contents” of the caster’s mind; (2) shadows marking some transition their caster is involved in; and (3) shadows suggesting a certain quality attached to one of a shadow’s main ingredients (casting object, light source or surface). For each of these types of rhetorical shadows, we demonstrate that the way they convey meaning basically follows the principles of perceiving and understanding natural shadows.     

In Memoriam: Herbert L. Pick,Jr. (1930–2012)

ABSTRACT

Fictive motion in language (as in “the ridge went north”) is claimed to reflect the attention focus of the observer on the extension and spatial layout of an entity. This paper investigates fictive motion in alpine narratives, which describe the experience of moving in a very specifically structured space. We examine space properties that are highlighted through fictive motion in this specific context and describe how they go beyond spatial extension. We further report the communicative motivation behind the use of fictive motion, ranging from conveying the sense of place to encoding the full spatial footprint of a motion event.     

Influences of Form and Function on the Acceptability of Projective Prepositions in Swedish

Abstract

Projective prepositions express the relation between two objects by referring to a direction in space and have traditionally been regarded as expressing purely geometric relations. Recent studies have shown that the appropriateness of English and Spanish projectives also depends on functional relations between objects. This study investigates if the acceptability of the Swedish projectives över, under, ovanför and nedanför are influenced by functional factors as well, and whether över and under are differentially influenced by function than ovanför and nedanför, as has been shown for their English cognates. It also investigates how the shape and parts of the related objects influence their functional interaction, and thereby the acceptability of the prepositions. This is done with respect to the predictions of the AVS-model, a model of the perceptual processes underlying the apprehension of projectives, which takes both the geometric and the functional relation between objects into account. It was found that acceptability judgments about the prepositions are influenced by function as their corresponding English and Spanish prepositions. The acceptability of över was more sensitive to function than ovanför, whereas under and nedanför were not differentially influenced by function, as has been shown for Spanish. It was further found that the shape and parts of both of the related objects influence acceptability regions associated with the prepositions in predictable ways, as functional interactions between objects largely depend on their parts. The results finally show that the AVS-model needs to be further developed in order to account for the form and function of the located object.     

Is Route Learning More Than Serial Learning?

Abstract

The nature of route learning in terms of the memorizing of landmarks was investigated. In Experiment 1, participants memorized landmarks while being guided through a computer-simulated hallway (dynamic, with spatial context), or while viewing the landmarks one by one in front of a black background (static, without context). Two more conditions completed the 2 × 2 design. One condition preserved the dynamic landmark viewing properties (observers approached each object, passed it, turned to the next object, and so on), but the background was black (dynamic, without context). In the other condition the observer saw a stationary display of each object within a hallway, but did not approach the object (static, with context). Serial recall was much better after viewing the landmarks in the dynamic presentation format with spatial context than in the other conditions. Experiment 2 showed that the superior performance in the dynamic condition with context was abolished when all hallway segments were equally long. This implies that metric information is a component of route knowledge at a very early stage, which is incompatible with the dominant framework, but is compatible with the alternative framework for spatial microgenesis.     

Mining Spatial Associations with Limited Sensory Information

Abstract

Human navigation in an unknown environment requires an understanding of the spatial relationships of the terrain. For example, a soldier who is on a reconnaissance mission in a new city needs to “know” the spatial layout of the surroundings with high confidence. Oftentimes, this understanding must be acquired within a very short amount of time and with limited sensory inputs. The soldier would benefit from a digital avatar that draws inferences about the spatial layout of the city based on an initial set of observations and guides the soldier either in further exploring the environment or in making decisions based on these inferences. In this paper, we present and evaluate an inductive approach to learning spatial associations using sensory data that is available from the simulation environment of a computer game, Unreal Tournament. We study two kinds of spatial relationships between nodes on a level of a game map: nodes that are placed near each other to satisfy some spatial requirement and nodes that are placed near each other to satisfy the design preferences of a level architect. We show that we can infer both kinds of relationships using an association rule mining algorithm. Furthermore, we show how to use an ontology to distinguish between these relationships in order to discover different types of spatial arrangements on a specific map. We discuss how the inferred associations can be used to control an avatar that makes recommendations for navigating unexplored areas on a map. We conclude with some thoughts on the applicability of our methods to scenarios in the real world, beyond the simulation environment of a game, and on how the learned associations can be represented and queried by a simple question-answer type system.     

Reasoning about Depth and Motion from an Observer's Viewpoint

ABSTRACT

The goal of this paper is to present a logic-based formalism for representing knowledge about objects in space and their movements, and show how this knowledge could be built up from the viewpoint of an observer immersed in a dynamic world. In this paper space is represented using functions that extract attributes of depth, size and distance from snapshots of the world. These attributes compose a novel spatial reasoning system named Depth Profile Calculus (DPC). Transitions between qualitative relations involving these attributes are represented by an extension of this calculus called Dynamic Depth Profile Calculus (DDPC). We argue that knowledge about objects in the world could be built up via a process of abduction on DDPC relations.     

Modelling Dynamic Spatial Systems in the Situation Calculus

Abstract

We propose and systematically formalise a dynamical spatial systems approach for the modelling of changing spatial environments. The formalisation adheres to the semantics of the situation calculus and includes a systematic account of key aspects that are necessary to realize a domain-independent qualitative spatial theory that may be utilised across diverse application domains. The spatial theory is primarily derivable from the all-pervasive generic notion of “qualitative spatial calculi” that are representative of differing aspects of space. In addition, the theory also includes aspects, both ontological and phenomenal in nature, that are considered inherent in dynamic spatial systems. Foundational to the formalisation is a causal theory that adheres to the representational and computational semantics of the situation calculus. This foundational theory provides the necessary (general) mechanism required to represent and reason about changing spatial environments and also includes an account of the key fundamental epistemological issues concerning the frame and the ramification problems that arise whilst modelling change within such domains. The main advantage of the proposed approach is that based on the structure and semantics of the proposed framework, fundamental reasoning tasks such as projection and explanation directly follow. Within the specialised spatial reasoning domain, these translate to spatial planning/re-configuration, causal explanation and spatial simulation. Our approach is based on the hypothesis that alternate formalisations of existing qualitative spatial calculi using high-level tools such as the situation calculus are essential for their utilisation in diverse application domains such as intelligent systems, cognitive robotics and event-based GIS.     

Space,Language, and Ontology: A Response to Bateman

Abstract

Some of John Bateman's critiques of my article “Qualitative Spatial Reasoning in Interpreting Text and Narrative” are certainly valid. However, the alternative solutions that he proposes do not seem to me to be improvements.     

World economics for mankind's frontier

In Acta Astronautica, Vol. 56, No. 5, March 2006, at ISSN0094-5765 there appears the article entitled “Will space actually be the Final Frontier of humankind?” written by Giancarlo Genta, and Michael Rycroft. This Acta Astronautica article requires amplification on the economic side. The writer of this article was personally present at the Apollo 11th launchings for the first landing on the Moon, by Buzz Aldrin and others. The Apollo 11 take off to the Moon, from Cape Carnival, did not leave the situation “so humankind seems forever to be bound to its own planet!” There was nothing pessimistic about the launch of Apollo 11. It is written that there was a lack of vision at that time, which is also not correct. The ‘Final Frontier’ myth was never mentioned on that occasion. At Apollo 11 we did take planet earth's “first faltering step for mankind” on the path towards a space faring civilization, exactly as these two authors later correctly mention. Now with the US Presidential initiatives “Moon, Mars and Beyond,” the authors suggested that it “will depend on social, political and economic issues rather than technological and scientific ones.” This Academy Note respectfully submits that all of these factors social, political and economic issues, plus psychological and scientific ones, instead of, “rather than technical and scientific ones” are going to be the determining factors of the speed of progress of the exploration of the entire universe, and particularly the sun in our Milky Way Galaxy. Russia and Ukraine are now on same, deep-space policy directions. The attention of the readers of this Academy Note is called to the current “Cosmic Collision” excellent presentation at the Hayden Planetarium, located at the Museum of National History in the City of New York. It shows the past, the present and the future of international humankind in exploring space and the creation of the universe, with particular reference to the protons of our sun, for our Milky Way Galaxy.     

The Influence of Geometrical and Nongeometrical Features on the Use of the Lexical Concepts NEAR and FAR in English and Finnish

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of geometrical and nongeometrical features on the use of the lexical concepts NEAR and FAR in English and Finnish. Participants' acceptability ratings for these concepts demonstrate that a bar in between a Figure and a Ground acts as a scale-setting object but not as a distance enhancing barrier, shows that the influence of the geometrical feature Figure–Ground distance exceeds the influence of several nongeometrical features, but most of all reveals that language specific lexical properties associated with NEAR and FAR predict language dependent effects for functional relatedness in interaction with Figure–Ground distance and bar presence.