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2003 > |
Course Description |
Spatial
cognition
Representational
models of linguistic, psychological, and geographic space.
Christian Freksa
Universität Bremen
This course will cover models of spatial cognition that relate to linguistic descriptions of spatial configurations, to psychological insights of cognitive space, or to conceptions of geographic space. The first lecture will motivate research on spatial cognition and provide examples of using spatial structures in everyday situations; the second lecture will present results from psychological experiments on spatial cognition and memory; the third and fourth lecture will focus on artificial intelligence representations of spatial knowledge and on spatial reasoning; the fifth lecture will cover applications of spatial reasoning related to geographic space. The course is designed to be accessible to cognitive science graduate students with non-technical background (e.g. psychology, linguistics). A curiosity for informatics / computer science approaches to cognitive science will be helpful.
1. Perception of Space and Spatial Reference
Systems
Motivation
Characteristics of spatial systems
Spatial reference systems
Neuroscientific foundations
Modalities: spatial vs. visual
Spatial metaphors
Required Readings
Levinson, Stephen C. (1996). Frames of reference and
Molyneux's question: Crosslinguistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson,
L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (eds.), Language and Space (pp. 109-169).
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Optional Readings
Freksa, C, ed. Special Issue on Spatial Cognition. KI 4/02.
2. Spatial Abilities and Spatial Memory
Spatial scales
Spatial distortions
Spatial abstraction
Required Readings
Montello, D. R. (1993). Scale and multiple psychologies of space. In A. U. Frank & I. Campari, eds, Spatial information theory: A theoretical basis for GI, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 716, 312-321, Berlin: Springer.
Optional Readings
Tversky,
B., 1993, Cognitive
maps, cognitive collages, and spatial mental models. In A. U. Frank &
I. Campari, eds., Spatial Information Theory: A Theoretical Basis for GIS,
Lecture Notes in Computer Science 716, 14-24, Berlin: Springer.
3. Representing Spatial Knowledge
Data structures for spatial knowledge
Metric knowledge, order knowledge, topological knowledge
Qualitative knowledge
The “Allen calculus”
Required Readings
Allen, J.F., Maintaining knowledge about temporal intervals, CACM 26 (11) (1983) 832-843.
Optional Readings
B. Kuipers. 2000. The
Spatial Semantic Hierarchy. Artificial Intelligence 119:
191-233.
4. Spatio-temporal
Reasoning
Spatial neighborhood and conceptual neighborhood
Qualitative spatial inference
Preferred mental models in qualitative spatial reasoning
Further approaches to spatial reasoning
Required Readings
Freksa C, Using orientation information for qualitative spatial reasoning, in Frank AU, Campari I, Formentini U, eds, Theories and methods of spatio-temporal reasoning in geographic space, LNCS 639, 162-178, Berlin: Springer 1992.
Optional Readings
Johnson-Laird, P., Mental Models, ch. 12 of Posner, M.I., ed., Foundations of Cognitive Science, Cambridge, MA: MIT-Press 1993.
Vieu, L., Spatial Representation and Reasoning in AI, ch. 1 of Stock, O., Spatial and Temporal Reasoning, Kluwer Academic Publishers 1997, 5-41.
5. Spatial and
Non-Spatial Representations and Applications of Spatial Reasoning
Multimodal complementation
Diagrammatic reasoning
Maps and robots
Required Readings
Freksa C, Barkowsky T, On the duality and on the integration of propositional and spatial representations, in Habel C, Rickheit G, eds, Mental models in discourse processing and reasoning, 195-212, Elsevier, Amsterdam 1999.
Optional Readings
Kulpa, Z. Diagrammatic Representation and Reasoning, Machine Graphics & Vision 3, 1/2, 1994, 77-103.
Mark DM, Freksa C, Hirtle SC, Lloyd R, Tversky B, Cognitive Models of Geographic Space, Int. J. of Geographical Information Science 13 (1999), 8, 747-774.
Small groups
Clarification of concepts and notions. Discussion of issues raised in the main classes and/or brought up by the participants. Participants will gain experience with various spatial representation models and discuss controversial topics. Discussions on topics that don't fit into the main lectures.
1. Place cells and fMRI studies
2. The image of the city and Hexatown
3. Allen calculus in more detail
4. Further reasoning methods, e.g. Schlieder
5. Wayfinding
Assessment
Students who desire credit should write a 10 page paper on a topic selected by consultation with the lecturer, e.g. describing how concepts in Spatial Cognition relate to one another, how they are relevant to the student’s interests, or challenging approaches or opinions presented by the instructor.
Christian Freksa
Christian Freksa received his B.S. in computer science from the University of San Francisco and his M.S. and Ph.D. (artificial intelligence / cognitive science) from the University of California at Berkeley. He received a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich in 1981 and held senior researcher and assistant professor positions at the Technical University in Munich from 1983 to 1991. In 1991 he joined the informatics faculty at the University of Hamburg. From 1996 to 2002 he coordinated the Spatial Cognition Priority Program funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. In 2002 he moved to the University of Bremen where he is now professor of informatics and head of the Cognitive Systems research group. He coordinates the International Quality Network on Spatial Cognition and the Transregional Collaborative Research Center SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition: Reasoning, Action, Interaction at the Universities Bremen and Freiburg.