Human Conceptions of Space Geog 231 Ben Adams Papers H. Couclelis - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Human Conceptions of Space

Geog 231 Ben Adams

Papers

• H. Couclelis and N. Gale (1986) Space and Spaces.

Geografiska Annaler 68B: 1-12.

• D. Montello (1993) Scale and Multiple Psychologies of Space.

In: A. U. Frank and I. Campari (Eds.), Spatial Information Theory: Theoretical Basis for GIS. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 716, pp. 312-321.

• S. Freundschuh and M. Egenhofer (1997) Human

Conceptions of Spaces: Implications for GIS. Transactions in GIS 2(4): 361-375.

Human Conceptions of Space

• All three papers are concerned with ways of

classifying “spaces”.

• Specifically, how do human conceptualizations
• f spaces compare to mathematical and

physical notions of space (the traditional basis for GISs)

• This is an important ontological problem (in

the philosophic sense) for Geographic Information Science

• All three primarily interested in visual

perception of space

Space and spaces

• There are many concepts of space
• Focus on notions of perceptual and cognitive

space.

• They introduce a framework for analysis

based on group theory and make the claim that it can be used to make a “hard distinction ... between perceptual and cognitive space.”

Perception and Cognition

• “perception … occurs because of the

presence of an object … temporally, it is closely connected with events in the immediate surroundings”

• Is there a real distinction? Perception directly

linked to sensation (seeing, hearing, etc.)

• Is perception a part of cognition?
• Distinction between the two just a question of

definition or is there an empirical distinction (Piaget)? [[study pg. 4]]

Perception and cognition

• Problem that we can only observe behavior
• Piaget – perception is momentary figuration

– Cognition allows for transformation operations

• Neurologically might “perception” and

“cognition” be the functions of different parts of the brain?

• Massively parallel processing in brain is

functioning in the “immediate” all the time, and is cognition an emergent feature of this system?

Space and spaces

• Attempts to create analytic framework for

understanding perceptual and cognitive spaces in terms of group theory.

• Hierarchy of spaces:

Algebraic Notation

• [S, ʘ]

– S, set of operands – ʘ, one binary operation

• ʘ:SxS → S
• Example S is the set of numbers and ʘ is

multiplication operator

– Any number (element in S) times any other

number will result in a number (also element in S)

Five axioms

• Closure: For all a, b ϵ S, aʘb ϵ S
• Associative law: For all a,b,c ϵ S, (aʘb)ʘc =

aʘ(bʘc)

• Identity element: For all a ϵ S there exists an

e ϵ S s.t. aʘe=eʘa=a

• Existence of inverses: For every a ϵ S, there

exists an element b ϵ S s.t. aʘb=bʘa=e

• Commutative law: For all a, b ϵ S, aʘb=bʘa

Example: multiplication over reals

• Closure: a * b = c
• Associative: (a*b)*c = a*(b*c)
• Identity element, 1: a*1 = 1*a = a
• Inverse: a * (1/a) = (1/a)*a = 1
• Commutative: a*b = b*a

Types of groups/spaces

• Abelian group: G1-G5 Pure Euclidean space
• Group: G1-G4

Physical space

• Monoid: G1-G3

Sensorimotor space

• Semigroup: G1-G2

Perceptual space

Conceptual spaces

• Per this paper cognitive spaces do not fit with

these axioms of group theory.

• However, Gärdenfors (2000) presents

conceptual space theory, which does allow

• ne to talk about cognitive spaces in terms of

metric spaces which are abelian groups.

Questions

• Does this analytical framework help with

cognitive modeling if cognitive and symbolic spaces do not fit in it?

• Are the arguments for matching space types

to group theory axioms compelling?

• Are these atoms and operands comparable?

Scale and Multiple Psychologies

• f Space
• What are the scale classes of space?

– e.g. small-scale vs large-scale spaces

• A question of spatial psychology – are there

qualitatively distinct scales in terms of how humans cognize space that can be tested empirically?

• Scale is relative to organism size

I am crushing your head!

Four Classes of Psychological Spaces

• Based on projective size relative to human

size:

• Figural – directly observed; projectively smaller than body
• Vista – proj. as large or larger than the body; viewed from

single viewpoint

• Environmental – proj. larger than the body; can only be

viewed completely through locomotion through the space

• Geographical – proj. much larger than the body; cannot be

learned through locomotion only through symbolic representation

Questions

• Do humans ever operate on the geographic

“psychological” scale or are they always

• perating on smaller scale representations?
• Is a much smaller than body scale (not visible,

e.g. nano) the same psychological space as much larger than body scale.

• Does depth perception play a role? Are

projectively small spaces really all the same scale if we can cognize that what we are looking at is far away?

Implications for GIS

• Main questions: How can an understanding of

spatial conceptualizations influence spatial representations in GIS?

• How do people perceive and cognize physical

space?

• How should these physical spaces modeled in

GIS when you take into account cognition?

• What are the rules for classification?

Implications for GIS

• Freundschuh and Egenhofer classify spaces

in terms of manipulability, locomotion, and size

• f space.

– More than just scale as previously defined

• Perception and cognition of space are

experience-based

– Image schemata – recurrent patterns and

shapes

Many cognitive models of space

• Different ways of qualitatively classifying

different types of spaces (ontologies):

– Geometric data models – Models of small and large scale

• Image of the City (Lynch, 1960)
• Ittelson (1973)

– Differentiation between object-space and

environment-space

• How does this relate to containers in image

schemata?

Many cognitive models of space

• Classifying spaces, cont.

– Small, medium, large spaces

• Where “medium” is defined around human

scale (Montello)

– Representations of space (maps) – Models that relate to interactions

• Spaces have affordances

– Spaces map from one to another, Mark (1992)

6 types of spaces

• Manipulable object space

– Pencil, book

• Non-manipulable object space

– Car, elephant, tree

• Environmental space

– Buildings, neighborhoods

• Geographic space

– States, countries

6 types of spaces, cont.

• Panoramic space

– Views in a room, from airplane window

• Map space

– Maps! (but not other map sized things) – Does this warrant its own kind of space, since

it is a representation of a space?

– What about a book that has a description of a

physical space?

Implications for GIS design

• GIS representation should better match the

space being worked with.

• Different types of spaces might need different

models, presentations, and user interfaces.

– Computer games have gotten very

sophisticated with this idea

Conceptions of space and geographic ontologies

• Ontologies → Categories of geographic kinds /
• bjects and their properties and relations
• How do human conceptualizations of space

influence geographic ontologies more generally?

• i.e. what kinds of geographic objects,

relations, boundaries, events, processes, qualities, and quantities are important for cognitive GIS?

• Direct connection to what kinds of data are

stored in GIS databases

Conceptions of space and

• ntologies
• Scale definitely matters for classification into different

kinds: pond, lake, sea, ocean

• Should there be different representations of the same

geographic object (e.g. cities) in a GIS database depending on the scale? e.g. perceiving the city from the ground (environment) vs. perceiving it from an airplane window (vista).

• Even the existence of geographical objects is

sometimes subject to “individual or cultural variability” (Smith & Mark, 1998)

Conceptions of space and

• ntologies
• How important should the scale be for representation
• vs. other properties of a geographic object (e.g. a

lake is a container of water)?

• Identification of a geographic object as a specific kind

can alter its size (and perhaps scale). e.g. identifying an area as a marsh vs. lake

• Objects with different scales can be the same kind:

e.g. Singapore and Russia are both states.