04/2008 Article submitted to GeoInformatica accepted
An article together with Stefan Hansen, Kai-Florian Richter and Stephan Winter has been accepted at GeoInformatica.
Title: Urban Granularities - A Data Structure for Cognitively Ergonomic Route Directions
Abstract. This paper addresses a data structure specification for route directions that incorporates essential aspects of cognitive information processing. Specifically, we characterize levels of granularity in route directions as the result of the hierarchical organization of urban spatial knowledge. We discuss changes of granularity in route directions that result from combining elementary route information into higher-order elements (so called spatial chunking). We provide a framework that captures the pertinent aspects of spatial chunking. The framework is based on established principles used---from a cognitive perspective---for changing the granularity in route directions. The data structure we specify based on this framework allows us to bridge the gap between results from behavioral cognitive science studies and requirements of information systems. We discuss the theoretical underpinning of the core elements of the data structure and provide examples for its application.
03/2008 Contribution (together with Dr. Frank Hardisty) accepted at Conference on Research and Training in Spatial Intelligence
A contribution to the Conference on Research and Training in Spatial Intelligence has been accepted. Title of this research collaboration is:
Visual Analytics and the Geometry of Thought— Spatial Intelligence through Sapient Interfaces
03/2008 Workshop proposal accepted at Spatial Cognition Conference 2008, Germany
A workshop proposal together with Dr. Stephen Hirtle (Univeristy of Pittsburgh, PA, USA) on
You-Are-Here Maps: Creating a Sense of Place through Map-like Representations
Has been accepted at the Spatial Cognition Conference 2008, Freiburg, Germany.
Detailes information including a call for papers can be found here.
03/2008 Tutorial proposal accepted at Spatial Cognition Conference 2008, Germany
Dr. Klippel will give a tutorial on Behavioral Similarity Measures for Spatial Cognition.
Similarity measures are essential to human cognition and have long been a central aspect for modeling spatial knowledge. To model the similarity of objects and events from a cognitive perspective several approaches have been proposed, specifically: geometric, feature-based, alignment based, and transformational. Among these measures, the geometric approach has gained widespread attention especially in spatial sciences. Additionally, in all disciplines participating in the endeavor of cognitive science, geometric approaches are used to model similarity and conceptual knowledge by applying distance concepts such as network or Euclidean distance. Similarity is inversely proportional to distance: the smaller the distance between two entities, the more similar they are.
Behavioral studies on the similarity of spatio-temporal events have not gained the same attention as formal treatments. Partially, this is due to the difficulties with perceived similarity that have long been under scrutiny from a psychological perspective. The proposed workshop will provide coverage of the topic addressing three key issues: 1) A (necessarily) brief introduction to similarity and similarity measures; 2) a detailed discussion of behavioral approaches to assessing similarity; 3) the analysis of similarity measures resulting from experiments with a special focus on cluster analysis. Part 2 and 3 will be accompanied by demonstrations using a purpose built software tool and available software solutions for performing cluster analysis (CLUSTAN and SPSS).
03/2008 Talk on Sapient Interfaces is available through iTunes University
The talk that Dr. Klippel gave at the Penn State Geography Department Coffee hour titled Sapient Interfaces is available as a podcast at iTunes University
09/2007 Best Paper Award
My paper at COSIT, Conference on Spatial Information Theory, together with Dan Montello on the linguistic and non-linguistic turn direction concepts has received the Best Paper Award.
Klippel, A., & Montello, D. R. (2007). Linguistic and nonlinguistic turn direction concepts. In S. Winter, B. Kuipers, M. Duckham, & L. Kulik (Eds.), Spatial Information Theory. 9th International Conference, COSIT 2007, Melbourne, Australia, September 19-23, 2007 Proceedings (pp. 354–372). Berlin: Springer.
Abstract. This paper discusses the conceptualization of turn directions along traveled routes. Foremost, we are interested in the influence that language has on the conceptualization of turn directions. Two experiments are presented that contrast the way people group turns into similarity classes when they expect to verbally label the turns, as compared to when they do not. We are particularly interested in the role that major axes such as the perpendicular left and right axis play—are they boundaries of sectors or central prototypes or do they have two functions: boundary and prototype? Our results support the claim by Crawford et al. (2000) that prototypes in linguistic tasks serve additionally as boundaries in nonlinguistic tasks, i.e. they fulfill a double function. We conclude by discussing implications for cognitive models of learning environmental layouts and route-instruction systems in different modalities.
08/2007 Article in GEOInformatics
An article that summarizes previous work on cognitively ergonomic route directions has been published in GEOInformatics.
07/2007 Funding through NURI
06/2007 Funding through WUN
The Worldwide Universitites Network (WUN) is funding research together with Prof. Anthony Cohn in Leeds. The research on the analysis of motion patterns between interacting cognitive agents will be conducted during a visit in Leeds in July 2007.
05/2007 Paper accepted
A paper together with Dan Montello has been accepted for the Conference on Spatial Information Theory: COSIT'07 in Melbourne, Australia, September 19-23, 2007
Klippel, A., & Montello, D. R. (accepted) Linguistic and nonlinguistic turn direction concepts.
Abstract. This paper discusses the conceptualization of turn directions along traveled routes. Foremost, we are interested in the influence that language has on the conceptualization of turn directions. Two experiments are presented that contrast the way people group turns into similarity classes when they expect to verbally label the turns, as compared to when they do not. We are particularly interested in the role that major axes such as the perpendicular left and right axis play—are they boundaries of sectors or central prototypes or do they have two functions: boundary and prototype? Our results support the claim by Crawford et al. (2000) that prototypes in linguistic tasks serve additionally as boundaries in nonlinguistic tasks, i.e. they fulfill a double function. We conclude by discussing implications for cognitive models of learning environmental layouts and route-instruction systems in different modalities.
05/2007 Invitation
Invitation to attend and present a short presentation at the inaugural symposium for the Spatial Information Science Research Interest Group at the University of Pittsburgh.
04/2007 Paper accepted
A paper together with Aidan Furlan andTimothy Baldwin has been accepted for the Fourth ACL-SIGSEM Workshop on Prepositions 2007.
Furlan, A., Baldwin, T., and Klippel, A. (accepted). Landmark classification for route directions.
Abstract. In order for automated navigation systems to operate effectively, the route instructions they produce must be clear, concise and easily understood by users. In order to incorporate a landmark within a coherent sentence, it is necessary to first understand how that landmark is conceptualised by travellers --- whether it is perceived as point-like, line-like or area-like. This paper investigates the viability of automatically classifying the conceptualisation of landmarks relative to a given city context. We use web data to learn the default conceptualisation of those landmarks, crucially analysing preposition and verb collocations in the classification.
04/2007 Paper accepted
A paper together with Mike Worboys and Matt Duckham has been accepted for the International Journal of Geographical Information Science.
Klippel, A., Worboys, M., & Duckham, M. (accepted). Identifying factors of geographic event conceptualization. International Journal of Geographical Information Science.
Abstract. This paper examines whether the formal topological characterization of spatial relations between moving geographic regions provides an adequate basis for the human conceptualization of motion events for those regions. The paper focuses on gradual changes in topological relationships caused by continuous transformations of the regions (specifically, translations). Using a series of experiments, the conceptualization and perception of conceptual neighborhoods is investigated. In particular, the role of conceptual neighborhoods in characterizing motion events is scrutinized. The experiments employ a grouping paradigm and a custom-made tool for presenting animated icons. The analysis examines whether paths through a conceptual neighborhood graph sufficiently characterize the conceptualization of the movement of two regions. The results of the experiments show that changes in topological relations---as detailed by paths through a conceptual neighborhood graph---are not sufficient to characterize the cognitive conceptualization of moving regions. The similarity ratings show clear effects of perceptually and conceptually induced groupings such as identity (which region is moving), reference (is a larger or a smaller region moving), and dynamics (are both regions moving at the same time).
02/2007 Invitation
Invitation to represent the Symposium Control Mechanisms for Spatial Knowledge Processing in Cognitive / Intelligent Systems as a speaker in the plenary session of the AAAI Spring symposium series 2007.
02/2007 Paper available
Hommel, B. and Klippel, A. (2007). Embodying spatial maps. In H. Schultheis, T. Barkowsky, B. Kuipers, & B. Hommel (Eds.), AAAI Spring Symposium 2007 on Control Mechanisms for Spatial Knowledge Processing in Cognitive / Intelligent Systems. AAAI Press.
pdf
01/2007 New affiliation details
Dr. Alexander Klippel
GeoVISTA Center, Department of Geography
The Pennsylvania State University
302 Walker Building
University Park, PA 16802, USA
email: klippel [at] psu.edu
phone: +1 814-865-1748
fax: +1
814-863-7943
12/2006 Report on a cognitively ergonomic route directions is available
Together with Stefan Hansen and Kai-Florian Richter an XLS specification for cognitivly ergonomic route directions has been advised. The results are available as a Report of the SFB/TR 8: Spatial Cognition.
Additionally slides from a presentation at the OGC meeting at Tyson's corner are available.
12/2006 New I2: Wayfinding with Schematic Maps Website Online
The project MapSpace of the Transregional Collaborative Reserach Center for Spatial Cognition has a new Website.
08.11.2006 Paper accepted at AAAI Spring Symposium on Control Mechanisms for Spatial Knowledge Processing in Cognitive / Intelligent Systems
Hommel, B., & Klippel, A. (to appear). Embodying spatial maps: AAAI Spring Symposium on Control Mechanisms for Spatial Knowledge Processing in Cognitive / Intelligent Systems. Stanford, California 2007.
02.10.2006 Podcast and Slides of GIScience Presentation are Available
Hansen, S., Richter, K.-F., & Klippel, A. (2006). Landmarks in OpenLS: A data structure for cognitive ergonomic route directions. In M. Raubal, H. Miller, A. U. Frank, & M. F. Goodchild (Eds.), GIScience 2006 (pp. 128-144). Berlin: Springer.
Article
Podcast/Slides at GIScience.org
28.09.2006 Best Paper Award at the Spatial Cognition Conference 2006, Bremen, Germany
We were awarded the best paper award at the spatial cognition conference 2006 in Bremen, Germany. The paper provides details on algorithms we developed on the basis of behavioral studies. Based on these algorithms it is possible to calculate routes that are short and at the same time reliable. The full paper is available for download.
25.08.2003 Paper accepted at Workshop on: Talking About and Perceiving Moving Objects
Klippel, A., Worboys, M., & Duckham, M. (2006). Conceptual neighborhood blindness - On the cognitive adequacy of gradual topological changes: Spatial Cognition 2006 Workshop “Talking about and perceiving moving objects: exploring the bridge between natural language, perception and formal ontologies of space”. Bremen, Germany.
03.08.2006 Two Papers Accepted at Spatial Cognition Conference 2006, Bremen, Germany
Richter, K.-F., & Klippel, A. (to appear). Before or after: Prepositions in spatially constrained systems. In T. Barkowsky, C. Freksa, M. Knauff, B. Krieg-Brückner, & B. Nebel (Eds.), Spatial Cognition V. Berlin: Springer.