Spatial Language: Cognitive and Computational Perspectives / Edition 1

by Kenny R. Coventry, P. Olivier

Overview

People constantly talk to each other about experience or knowledge resulting from spatial perception; they describe the size, shape, orientation and position of objects using a wide range of spatial expressions. The semantic treatment of such expressions presents particular challenges for natural language processing. The meaning representation used must be capable of distinguishing between fine-grained sense differences and ambiguities grounded in our experience and perceptual structure. While there have been many different approaches to the representation and processing of spatial expressions, most computational characterisations have been restricted to particularly narrow problem domains. The chapters in the present volume reflect a commitment to the development of cognitively informed computational treatments of spatial language and spatial representation. Therefore the chapters present computational work, empirical work, or a combination of both.
The book will appeal to all those interested in spatial language and spatial representation, whether they work in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, cognitive psychology or linguistics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402002083
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	12/31/2001
Edition description:	2002
Pages:	283
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

1. Reasoning about Shape using the Tangential Axis Transform or the Shape’s “Grain”.- 2. A Conceptual Model for Representing Verbal Expressions used in Route Descriptions.- 3. Resolving Ambiguous Descriptions through Visual Information.- 4. An Anthropomorphic Agent for the Use of Spatial Language.- 5. Gesture, Thought, and Spatial Language.- 6. Organization of Temporal Situations.- 7. Grounding Meaning in Visual Knowledge. A Case Study: Dimensional Adjectives.- 8. Understanding How We Think about Space.- 9. The Real Story of “Over”?.- 10. Generating Spatial Descriptions from a Cognitive Point of View.- 11. Multiple Frames of Reference in Interpreting Complex Projective Terms.- 12. Goal-Directed Effects on Processing a Spatial Environment. Indications from Memory and Language.- 13. Memory for Text and Memory for Space. Two Concurrent Memory Systems?.- Author index.