Spatial Cognition V

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Spatial Cognition, Spatial Cognition 2006. It covers spatial reasoning, human-robot interaction, visuo-spatial reasoning and spatial dynamics, spatial concepts, human memory, mental reasoning and assistance, spatial concepts, human memory and mental reasoning, navigation, wayfinding and route instructions as well as linguistic and social issues in spatial knowledge processing.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Spatial Cognition, Spatial Cognition 2006. It covers spatial reasoning, human-robot interaction, visuo-spatial reasoning and spatial dynamics, spatial concepts, human memory, mental reasoning and assistance, spatial concepts, human memory and mental reasoning, navigation, wayfinding and route instructions as well as linguistic and social issues in spatial knowledge processing.

This third volume documents the results achieved within a priority program on spatial cognition funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG). The 23 revised full papers presented went through two rounds of reviewing and improvement and reflect the increased interdisciplinary cooperation in the area. The papers are organized in topical sections on routes and navigation, human memory and learning, spatial representation, and spatial reasoning.

This book constitutes the documentation of the results achieved within a proirity program on spatial cognition established by the German Science Foundation (DFG) in 1996 involving 13 research groups in Germany and leading scientists from abroad. The 22 revised full papers included were first presented during a colloquium in fall 1997 and then went through a second round of thorough reviewing. The book is organized into three parts on spatial knowledge acquisition and spatial memory, formal and linguistic models, and navigation in real and virtual worlds. All in all the book is a unique report on the state-of-the art in the interdisciplinary research field of spatial cognition and its potential applications.

Research on spatial cognition is a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary enterprise for the study of spatial representations and cognitive spatial processes, be they real or abstract, human or machine. Spatial cognition brings together a variety of - search methodologies: empirical investigations on human and animal orientation and navigation; studies of communicating spatial knowledge using language and graphical or other pictorial means; the development of formal models for r- resenting and processing spatial knowledge; and computer implementations to solve spatial problems, to simulate human or animal orientation and navigation behavior, or to reproduce spatial communication patterns. These approaches can interact in interesting and useful ways: Results from empirical studies call for formal explanations both of the underlying memory structures and of the processes operating upon them; we can develop and - plement operational computer models obeying the relationships between objects and events described by the formal models; we can empirically test the computer models under a variety of conditions, and we can compare the results to the - sults from the human or animal experiments. A disagreement between these results can provide useful indications towards the re nement of the models.

This book constitutes the second volume documenting the results achieved within a priority program on spatial cognition by the German Science Foundation (DFG).The 28 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and reflect the increased interdisciplinary cooperation in the area. The book is divided into sections on maps and diagrams, motion and spatial reference, spatial relations and spatial inference, navigation in real and virtual spaces, and spatial memory.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Spatial Cognition, Spatial Cognition 2008, held in Freiburg, Germany, in September 2008. The 27 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 54 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on spatial orientation, spatial navigation, spatial learning, maps and modalities, spatial communication, spatial language, similarity and abstraction, concepts and reference frames, as well as spatial modeling and spatial reasoning.

Spatial Cognition brings together psychology, computer science, linguistics and geography, discussing how people think about space (our internal cognitive maps and spatial perception) and how we communicate about space, for instance giving route directions or using spatial metaphors. The technological applications adding dynamism to the area include computer interfaces, educational software, multimedia, and in-car navigation systems. On the experimental level, themes as varied as gender differences in orientation and — of course, wholly unrelated — the role of the hippocampus in rodent navigation are described. Much detailed analysis and computational modeling of the structure of short term memory (STM) is discussed. The papers were presented at the 1998 annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society of Ireland, Mind III. (Series B)