This paper is a contribution to the debate on children‚s perspective taking skills, addressing th... more This paper is a contribution to the debate on children‚s perspective taking skills, addressing the question which kinds of adaptation are related to different functions of children‚s utterances in their everyday life. A longitudinal home-based study of the contents of a child‚s speech focuses on the child‚s growing ability to present new information to his interaction partner. The functions of the child‚s talk are analysed using Halliday‚s (1975, 1994) framework. The results show that the earliest functions of the child‚s talk are predominantly representational, expressing reflections on (shared) experience that do not necessitate perspective taking. Later on, interpersonal functions emerge, involving emotional sharing with the interlocutor, but not necessarily any understanding of the listener‚s mind. Finally, starting with explanations and elaborations of situations observable by both interlocutors, the child becomes increasingly able to convey information which is new to the list...
We provide a systematic model of spatial reference frames. The model captures concepts underlying... more We provide a systematic model of spatial reference frames. The model captures concepts underlying natural language expressions in English that represent both external and internal as well as static and dynamic relationships between entities. Our implementation in the functional language Haskell generates valid English sentences from situations and reference frames. Spatial reference frames are represented by the spatial roles of locatum, relatum, and, optionally, vantage, together with a directional system. Locatum, relatum, and vantage can be filled by entities taking on the discourse roles of speaker, addressee, and participant (grammatically expressed by first, second, and third person). Each of these roles may remain unspecified in a linguistic description.
The Collaborative Interdisciplinary Specialized Workshop on Spatial Behavior and Linguistic Repre... more The Collaborative Interdisciplinary Specialized Workshop on Spatial Behavior and Linguistic Representation took place on April 23-24, 2010, at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, Institute for Advanced Study (HWK), in Delmenhorst, Germany. We report the scientific motivation for this workshop and report its outcomes together with the impact of a gathering of this kind for the scientific community 1 .
Research on problem solving typically does not address tasks that involve following detailed and/... more Research on problem solving typically does not address tasks that involve following detailed and/or illustrated step-by-step instructions. Such tasks are not seen as cognitively challenging problems to be solved. In this paper, we challenge this assumption by analyzing verbal protocols collected during an Origami folding task. Participants verbalised thoughts well beyond reading or reformulating task instructions, or commenting on actions. In particular, they compared the task status to pictures in the instruction, evaluated the progress so far, referred to previous experience, expressed problems and confusions, and-crucially-added complex thoughts and ideas about the current instructional step. The last two categories highlight the fact that participants conceptualised this spatial task as a problem to be solved, and used creativity to achieve this aim. Procedurally, the verbalisations reflect a typical order of steps: reading-reformulating-reconceptualising-evaluating. During reconceptualisation, the creative range of spatial concepts represented in language highlights the complex mental operations involved when transferring the two-dimensional representation into the real world. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of problem solving as a multilayered process involving diverse types of cognitive effort, consider parallels to known conceptual challenges involved in interpreting spatial descriptions, and reflect on the benefit of reconceptualisation for cognitive processes.
During building design, architects communicate frequently with numerous stakeholders: primarily w... more During building design, architects communicate frequently with numerous stakeholders: primarily with their clients and occasionally with future building occupants. Each group is characterized by a different mindset concerning design issues, and each draws on a different conceptual background, leading to diverging terminology and potential miscommunication. In this paper, we discuss the challenges that arise due to the discrepant discourses and points of view employed by the people involved. The architect perspective involves complex considerations of aesthetics, innovation and creativity, functionality, and multiple other issues. The user perspective is more strongly focused on perception of the environment, functionality, appropriation, and wayfinding; and the client perspective may center on economical, functional, and aesthetic aspects. These different mindsets pose substantial challenges for the education of architects to adopt communication practices that are client oriented and user sensitive.
Germany. This report outlines the main rationale for the tutorial along with central contribution... more Germany. This report outlines the main rationale for the tutorial along with central contributions by its participants, who considerably enhanced the success of the tutorial by sharing and discussing their own research experiences with respect to the analysis of language in spatial cognition contexts. The tutorial's website is http: knirb.net/TutorialSC2012.html.
Mobile games become more and more embedded in our everyday lives. In this industry, particular ty... more Mobile games become more and more embedded in our everyday lives. In this industry, particular types of spatial information are often given predominantly by visual means, while verbal and other sensorial feedback (vibration) are used for additional or different information. Since this may provide an obstacle for some users in some contexts, exploring other ways of conveying equivalent location information may facilitate the development of successful and engaging future mobile games. This paper focuses on how the same location information, given either visually or verbally, affects player performance within a mobile game. We present an explorative study using a simple, locationbased game on the iPhone, testing users' reactions to the two types of spatial information. The results, which reflect a high amount of individual variation but no negative effects on performance, are discussed by opening up the space of possibilities for future designs.
Projective terms such as left, right, front, back are conceptually interesting due to their flexi... more Projective terms such as left, right, front, back are conceptually interesting due to their flexibility of contextual usage and their central relevance to human spatial cognition. Their default acceptability areas are well known, with prototypical axes representing their most central usage and decreasing acceptability away from the axes. Previous research has shown these axes to be boundaries in certain non-linguistic tasks, indicating an inverse relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic direction concepts under specific circumstances. Given this striking mismatch, our study asks how such inverse non-linguistic concepts are represented in language, as well as how people describe their categorization. Our findings highlight two distinct grouping strategies reminiscent of theories of human categorization: prototype based or boundary based. These lead to different linguistic as well as non-linguistic patterns.
In this paper, we analyze a corpus of route directions given while viewing simple maps, focusing ... more In this paper, we analyze a corpus of route directions given while viewing simple maps, focusing on the conceptualization of direction changes at decision points. We address the variability of conceptualizations underlying turning actions at decision points as well as the level of detail given to specify actions, and we propose a systematic approach to analyzing route direction data that is suitable to account for the difference between structure and function. Verbalizations of trajectories within a route direction task may require different levels of detail depending on the spatial situation, to enable disambiguation to the degree needed to perform the route task. Our characterization of aspects that influence the specification of spatial relations in the context of route directions accounts for (a) the spatial structure of an intersection, (b) the action to be performed at an intersection that demarcates functionally relevant parts, (c) the availability of additional features that can be used to anchor the action to be performed (landmarks), and (d) the conceptualization of this action as a result of structure and function and the features available.
Situated dialogic corpora are invaluable resources for understanding the complex relationship bet... more Situated dialogic corpora are invaluable resources for understanding the complex relationship between language, perception, and action as they are based on naturalistic dialogue situations in which the interactants are given shared goals to be accomplished in the real world. In such situations, verbal interactions are intertwined with actions, and shared goals can only be achieved via dynamic negotiation processes based on common ground constructed from discourse history as well as the interactants' knowledge about the status of actions. In this paper, we propose four major dimensions of collaborative tasks that affect the negotiation processes among interactants, and, hence, the structure of the dialogue. Based on a review of available dialogue corpora and annotation manuals, we show that existing annotation schemes so far do not adequately account for the complex dialogue processes in situated task-based scenarios. We illustrate the effects of specific features of a scenario u...
This paper is a contribution to the debate on children‚s perspective taking skills, addressing th... more This paper is a contribution to the debate on children‚s perspective taking skills, addressing the question which kinds of adaptation are related to different functions of children‚s utterances in their everyday life. A longitudinal home-based study of the contents of a child‚s speech focuses on the child‚s growing ability to present new information to his interaction partner. The functions of the child‚s talk are analysed using Halliday‚s (1975, 1994) framework. The results show that the earliest functions of the child‚s talk are predominantly representational, expressing reflections on (shared) experience that do not necessitate perspective taking. Later on, interpersonal functions emerge, involving emotional sharing with the interlocutor, but not necessarily any understanding of the listener‚s mind. Finally, starting with explanations and elaborations of situations observable by both interlocutors, the child becomes increasingly able to convey information which is new to the list...
We provide a systematic model of spatial reference frames. The model captures concepts underlying... more We provide a systematic model of spatial reference frames. The model captures concepts underlying natural language expressions in English that represent both external and internal as well as static and dynamic relationships between entities. Our implementation in the functional language Haskell generates valid English sentences from situations and reference frames. Spatial reference frames are represented by the spatial roles of locatum, relatum, and, optionally, vantage, together with a directional system. Locatum, relatum, and vantage can be filled by entities taking on the discourse roles of speaker, addressee, and participant (grammatically expressed by first, second, and third person). Each of these roles may remain unspecified in a linguistic description.
The Collaborative Interdisciplinary Specialized Workshop on Spatial Behavior and Linguistic Repre... more The Collaborative Interdisciplinary Specialized Workshop on Spatial Behavior and Linguistic Representation took place on April 23-24, 2010, at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, Institute for Advanced Study (HWK), in Delmenhorst, Germany. We report the scientific motivation for this workshop and report its outcomes together with the impact of a gathering of this kind for the scientific community 1 .
Research on problem solving typically does not address tasks that involve following detailed and/... more Research on problem solving typically does not address tasks that involve following detailed and/or illustrated step-by-step instructions. Such tasks are not seen as cognitively challenging problems to be solved. In this paper, we challenge this assumption by analyzing verbal protocols collected during an Origami folding task. Participants verbalised thoughts well beyond reading or reformulating task instructions, or commenting on actions. In particular, they compared the task status to pictures in the instruction, evaluated the progress so far, referred to previous experience, expressed problems and confusions, and-crucially-added complex thoughts and ideas about the current instructional step. The last two categories highlight the fact that participants conceptualised this spatial task as a problem to be solved, and used creativity to achieve this aim. Procedurally, the verbalisations reflect a typical order of steps: reading-reformulating-reconceptualising-evaluating. During reconceptualisation, the creative range of spatial concepts represented in language highlights the complex mental operations involved when transferring the two-dimensional representation into the real world. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of problem solving as a multilayered process involving diverse types of cognitive effort, consider parallels to known conceptual challenges involved in interpreting spatial descriptions, and reflect on the benefit of reconceptualisation for cognitive processes.
During building design, architects communicate frequently with numerous stakeholders: primarily w... more During building design, architects communicate frequently with numerous stakeholders: primarily with their clients and occasionally with future building occupants. Each group is characterized by a different mindset concerning design issues, and each draws on a different conceptual background, leading to diverging terminology and potential miscommunication. In this paper, we discuss the challenges that arise due to the discrepant discourses and points of view employed by the people involved. The architect perspective involves complex considerations of aesthetics, innovation and creativity, functionality, and multiple other issues. The user perspective is more strongly focused on perception of the environment, functionality, appropriation, and wayfinding; and the client perspective may center on economical, functional, and aesthetic aspects. These different mindsets pose substantial challenges for the education of architects to adopt communication practices that are client oriented and user sensitive.
Germany. This report outlines the main rationale for the tutorial along with central contribution... more Germany. This report outlines the main rationale for the tutorial along with central contributions by its participants, who considerably enhanced the success of the tutorial by sharing and discussing their own research experiences with respect to the analysis of language in spatial cognition contexts. The tutorial's website is http: knirb.net/TutorialSC2012.html.
Mobile games become more and more embedded in our everyday lives. In this industry, particular ty... more Mobile games become more and more embedded in our everyday lives. In this industry, particular types of spatial information are often given predominantly by visual means, while verbal and other sensorial feedback (vibration) are used for additional or different information. Since this may provide an obstacle for some users in some contexts, exploring other ways of conveying equivalent location information may facilitate the development of successful and engaging future mobile games. This paper focuses on how the same location information, given either visually or verbally, affects player performance within a mobile game. We present an explorative study using a simple, locationbased game on the iPhone, testing users' reactions to the two types of spatial information. The results, which reflect a high amount of individual variation but no negative effects on performance, are discussed by opening up the space of possibilities for future designs.
Projective terms such as left, right, front, back are conceptually interesting due to their flexi... more Projective terms such as left, right, front, back are conceptually interesting due to their flexibility of contextual usage and their central relevance to human spatial cognition. Their default acceptability areas are well known, with prototypical axes representing their most central usage and decreasing acceptability away from the axes. Previous research has shown these axes to be boundaries in certain non-linguistic tasks, indicating an inverse relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic direction concepts under specific circumstances. Given this striking mismatch, our study asks how such inverse non-linguistic concepts are represented in language, as well as how people describe their categorization. Our findings highlight two distinct grouping strategies reminiscent of theories of human categorization: prototype based or boundary based. These lead to different linguistic as well as non-linguistic patterns.
In this paper, we analyze a corpus of route directions given while viewing simple maps, focusing ... more In this paper, we analyze a corpus of route directions given while viewing simple maps, focusing on the conceptualization of direction changes at decision points. We address the variability of conceptualizations underlying turning actions at decision points as well as the level of detail given to specify actions, and we propose a systematic approach to analyzing route direction data that is suitable to account for the difference between structure and function. Verbalizations of trajectories within a route direction task may require different levels of detail depending on the spatial situation, to enable disambiguation to the degree needed to perform the route task. Our characterization of aspects that influence the specification of spatial relations in the context of route directions accounts for (a) the spatial structure of an intersection, (b) the action to be performed at an intersection that demarcates functionally relevant parts, (c) the availability of additional features that can be used to anchor the action to be performed (landmarks), and (d) the conceptualization of this action as a result of structure and function and the features available.
Situated dialogic corpora are invaluable resources for understanding the complex relationship bet... more Situated dialogic corpora are invaluable resources for understanding the complex relationship between language, perception, and action as they are based on naturalistic dialogue situations in which the interactants are given shared goals to be accomplished in the real world. In such situations, verbal interactions are intertwined with actions, and shared goals can only be achieved via dynamic negotiation processes based on common ground constructed from discourse history as well as the interactants' knowledge about the status of actions. In this paper, we propose four major dimensions of collaborative tasks that affect the negotiation processes among interactants, and, hence, the structure of the dialogue. Based on a review of available dialogue corpora and annotation manuals, we show that existing annotation schemes so far do not adequately account for the complex dialogue processes in situated task-based scenarios. We illustrate the effects of specific features of a scenario u...
Uploads
Papers by T. Tenbrink