TRR 8:  Spatial Cognition - Reasoning, Action, Interaction

• Subject Area: Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: from 2003 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5485810

• Final Report Year: 2015

Final Report Abstract

Space and time are ubiquitous wherever and whenever humans, animals, or other cognitive agents such as autonomous robots perceive their environments, make sense of their perceptions, and take actions. Over the past twelve years, the SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition at the Universities of Bremen and Freiburg investigated properties of space and time from a cognitive perspective, i.e. from an information processing point of view: what are the specific requirements of reasoning about space and time, for acting in space, and for communicating and otherwise interacting in spatio-temporal domains. The investigation of information processing aspects of space and time leads to the question in which ways and to what extent the pertinent structures of space impede or support cognitive processing and intelligent decision-making: on one hand, these structures are quite specific and may bias more general cognitive abilities such as abstract thinking; on the other hand, spatio-temporal information processing structures may be perfectly aligned with the spatial and temporal structures that cognitive agents are immersed in; thus spatial cognition may perfectly support cognitive agents in what they need to do. In the SFB/TR 8 spatial cognition has been studied in a variety of ways: empirical cognitive psychology and cognitive systems research investigates spatial abilities of humans and autonomous robots such as spatial orientation and wayfinding; this research explores what kind of cognitive resources (perception, memory, reasoning, communication, action) are employed to perform on spatial tasks. Spatial cognition also has been studied on the theoretical level of logics and mathematics: which kinds of information are required to solve certain spatial tasks and what is the computational complexity of solving spatial tasks in certain knowledge representation structures? Spatial cognition also has been studied on the level of technical construction in artificial intelligence: based on the theories of spatial cognition we can build artifacts that implement exactly those aspects of perception, memory, information processing, communication, and action that are hypothesized to be responsible for intelligent processing of spatial information; these implemented models can be empirically tested, and their information processing properties and behavior can be compared with their natural role models. A special feature of the synthetic constructive approach is that we can build virtual worlds that violate certain spatial structures of physical spatial worlds; this allows for testing theories about processing spatial information in ways in which they cannot be tested by conventional methods in physical space. Furthermore, we must critically scrutinize the objectives of spatial cognition: what is the set of tasks or other occupations that are pursued by a cognitive system? This kind of question has been investigated by looking at specific application domains like communication about space (cognitive linguistics), making maps that effectively and efficiently permit wayfinding (cognitive geography), constructing physical spaces that serve specific functions (cognitive architecture). This allows us to measure cognitive performance with respect to well-defined goals. An interesting philosophical question that results from the work in the SFB/TR 8 is the question whether high-performance spatial cognition can be carried out by powerful general-purpose computers that are not restricted to processing information about space or whether computers must – like brains – be augmented by spatial systems such as physical bodies, spatial sensors, and spatial environments which do not only describe and simulate the structures of space but which intrinsically have spatio-temporal properties themselves. Complexity-theoretical results of spatial cognition indicate that certain crucial operations are computationally intractable in present-day representations of space; this suggests that either we cannot expect general-purpose systems to solve certain spatial tasks or certain spatial structures are crucial for tractability. While working on all the above research issues, the SFB/TR 8 answered important questions of spatial cognition. On top of this, important new research questions were identified that need to be addressed in the future.

Publications

• (2005). A model for context-specific route directions. In Freksa, C., Knauff, M., Krieg-Brückner, B., Nebel, B., and Barkowsky, T., editors, Spatial Cognition IV – Reasoning, Action, Interaction, pages 58-78. Springer, Berlin
  Richter, K.-F. and Klippel, A.
  
• (2005). Ontologies for the semantic web in CASL. In Fiadeiro, J. L., Mosses, P., and Orejas, F., editors, Recent Trends in Algebraic Development Techniques, 17th International Workshop (WADT 2004), pages 106–125. Springer, Berlin
  Lüttich, K., Mossakowski, T., and Krieg-Brückner, B.
  
• (2005). Preferred and alternative mental models in spatial reasoning. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 5(2&3):239–269
  Rauh, R., Hagen, C., Knauff, M. Kuss, T., Schlieder, C., and Strube, G.
  
• (2005). Specification of an ontology for route graphs. In Freksa, C., Knauff, M., Krieg-Brückner, B., Nebel, B., and Barkowsky, T., editors, Spatial Cognition IV – Reasoning, Action, Interaction, pages 390-412. Springer, Berlin
  Krieg-Brückner, B., Frese, U., Lüttich, K., Mandel, C., Mossakowski, T., and Ross, R. J.
  
• (2005). Towards an Autonomous Wheelchair: Cognitive Aspects in Service Robotics. In Proceedings of Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS 2005), S. 165–172
  Mandel, C., Huebner, K., and Vierhuff, T.
  
• (2005). Towards dialogue based shared control of navigating robots. In Freksa, C., Knauff, M., Krieg-Brückner, B., Nebel, B., and Barkowsky, T., editors, Spatial Cognition IV – Reasoning, Action, Interaction, pages 478-499. Springer, Berlin
  Ross, R., Shi, H., Vierhuff, T., and Krieg-Brückner, B.
  
• (2005). Wayfinding choremes – a language for modeling conceptual route knowledge. Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, 16(4):311-329
  Klippel, A., Tappe, H., Kulik, L., and Lee, P. U.
  
• (2006). Orientation calculi and route graphs: Towards semantic representations for route descriptions. In Raubal, M., Miller, H. J., Frank, A. U., and Goochild, M. F., editors, Geographic Information Science - 4th International Conference, GIScience 2006. Springer, Berlin
  Krieg-Brückner, B. and Shi, H.
  
• (2006). Qualitative spatial representation and reasoning in the SparQ-toolbox. In Barkowsky, T., Knauff, M., Ligozat, G., and Montello, D. R., editors, Spatial Cognition V – Reasoning, Action, Interaction. Springer, Berlin
  Wallgrün, J. O., Frommberger, L., Wolter, D., Dylla, F., and Freksa, C.
  
• (2007). Aspect-oriented building design: Towards computer-aided approaches to solving spatial constraints in architecture. In Allen, G. L., editor, Applied Spatial Cognition: From Research to Cognitive Technology, pages 75-102, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ
  Bertel, S., Vrachliotis, G., and Freksa, C.
  
• (2008). Knowledge-based wayfinding maps for small display cartography. Journal of Location Based Services, 2(1):57-83
  Schmid, F.
  
• (2008). Qualitative spatial reasoning about relative point position. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 19:75–98
  Moratz, R. and Ragni, M.
  
• (2009). Controlling an automated wheelchair via joystick/headjoystick supported by smart driving assistance. In Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE 11th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, pages 743–748
  Röfer, T., Mandel, C., and Laue, T.
  
• (2009). Navigating a smart wheelchair with a brain-computer interface interpreting steady-state visual evoked potentials. In Xi, N. and Hamel, W. R., editors, Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pages 1118–1125. IEEE
  Mandel, C., Lüth, T., Laue, T., Röfer, T., Gräser, A., and Krieg-Brückner, B.
  
• (2010). Bio-inspired architecture for active sensorimotor localization. In Hölscher, C., Shipley, T., Belardinelli, M. O., Bateman, J., and Newcombe, N., editors, Spatial Cognition VII – International Conference Spatial Cognition 2010, pages 163-178. Springer, Berlin
  Reineking, T., Wolter, J., Gadzicki, K., and Zetzsche, C.
  
• (2010). Deep reasoning in clarification dialogues with mobile robots. In Coelho, H., Studer, R., and Wooldridge, M., editors, Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2010). IOS Press, Amsterdam
  Jian, C., Zhekova, D., Shi, H., and Bateman, J.
  
• (2010). Hierarchical optimization on manifolds for online 2D and 3D mapping. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Anchorage, Alaska
  Grisetti, G., Kümmerle, R., Stachniss, C., Frese, U., and Hertzberg, C.
  
• (2010). Influence of geometry and objects on local route choices during wayfinding. In Hölscher, C., Shipley, T., Belardinelli, M. O., Bateman, J., and Newcombe, N., editors, Spatial Cognition VII – International Conference Spatial Cognition 2010, pages 41-53. Springer, Berlin
  Frankenstein, J., Büchner, S., Tenbrink, T., and Hölscher, C.
  
• (2010). Qualitative reasoning with directional relations. Artificial Intelligence, 174(18):1498–1507
  Wolter, D. and Lee, J. H.
  
• (2010). Qualitative spatial reasoning for topological map learning. Spatial Cognition and Computation - An Interdisciplinary Journal, 10(4):207-246
  Wallgrün, J. O.
  
• (2011). A probabilistic framework for learning kinematic models of articulated objects. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR), 41:477-526
  Sturm, J., Stachniss, C., and Burgard, W.
  
• (2011). Casimir: An architecture for mental spatial knowledge processing. topiCS - Topics in Cognitive Science, 3:778-795
  Schultheis, H. and Barkowsky, T.
  
• (2012). Grab a mug – Object detection and grasp motion planning with the NAO robot. In Proc. of the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids)
  Müller, J., Frese, U., and Röfer, ,T.
  
• (2012). Investigating the in-between: multisensory integration of auditory and visual motion streams. Seeing and Perceiving, 25:45-69
  Kluss, T., Schult, N., Schill, K., Fahle, M., and Zetzsche, C.
  
• (2012). Qualitative reasoning about relative direction of oriented points. Artificial Intelligence, 180–181(0):34–45
  Mossakowski, T. and Moratz, R.
  
• (2012). Relevance in spatial navigation and communication. In Stachniss, C., Schill, K., and Uttal, D., editors, Spatial Cognition VIII – International Conference, Spatial Cognition 2012, pages 358-377. Springer, Heidelberg
  Tenbrink, T.
  
• (2013). A theory and a computational model of spatial reasoning with preferred mental models. Psychological Review, 120(3):561-588
  Ragni, M. and Knauff, M.
  
• (2013). Algebraic properties of qualitative spatio-temporal calculi. In Tenbrink, T., Stell, J., Galton, A., and Wood, Z., editors, Spatial Information Theory – 11th International Conference, COSIT 2013, pages 516-536. Springer, Cham
  Dylla, F., Mossakowski, T., Schneider, T., and Wolter, D.
  
• (2013). Annotation of negotiation processes in joint-action dialogues. Dialogue and Discourse, 4(2):185-214
  Tenbrink, T., Eberhard, K., Shi, H., Kübler, S., and Scheutz, M.
  
• (2013). Integrating generic sensor fusion algorithms with sound state representations through encapsulation of manifolds. Information Fusion, 14(1):57-77
  Hertzberg, C., Wagner, R., Frese, U., and Schröder, L.
  
• (2013). OctoMap: An efficient probabilistic 3D mapping framework based on Octrees. Autonomous Robots, 34:189-206
  Hornung, A., Wurm, K. M., Bennewitz, M., Stachniss, C., and Burgard, W.
  
• (2013). POE 2.0: Exploring the potential of social media for capturing unsolicited post occupancy evaluations. Intelligent Buildings International, 5(3):162-180
  Dalton, R., Kuliga, S., and Hölscher, C.
  
• (2014). IISPH-FLIP for incompressible fluids. Computer Graphics Forum (Proc. Eurographics 2014), 33(2):255-262
  Cornelis, J., Ihmsen, M., Peer, A., and Teschner, M.
  
• (2014). Learning object deformation models for robot motion planning. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 62(8):1153- 1174
  Frank, B., Stachniss, C., Schmedding, R., Teschner, M., and Burgard, W.
  
• (2014). Mobile manipulation in cluttered environments with humanoids: Integrated perception, task planning, and action execution. Proceedings of the 14th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), pages 773-778
  Hornung, A., Boettcher, S., Dornhege, C., Hertle, A., Schlagenhauf, J., and Bennewitz, M.
  
• (2014). Modeling mental spatial reasoning about cardinal directions. Cognitive Science, 38(8):1521-1561
  Schultheis, H., Bertel, S., and Barkowsky, T.
  
• (2014). On qualitative route descriptions: Representation, agent models, and computational complexity. Journal of Philosophical Logic
  Westphal, M., Wölfl, S., Nebel, B., and Renz, J.
  
• (2015). Conceptual transformation and cognitive processes in Origami paper folding. Journal of Problem Solving, 8(1)
  Tenbrink, T. and Taylor, H. A.
  
• (2015). E pluribus unum - Formalisation, use-cases, and computational support for conceptual blending. In Besold, T. R., Schorlemmer, M., and Smaill, A., editors, Computational Creativity Research: Towards Creative Machines, Vol. 7, pages 167–196. Atlantis Press
  Kutz, O., Bateman, J., Mossakowski, T., Neuhaus, F., and Mehul Bhatt
  
• (2017). Architectural design cognition: People-centred visuo-spatial cognition, and its role in systems and educational discourse for design conception, computing, and communication. In Ammon, S. and Hinterwaldner, I., editors, Bildlichkeit im Zeitalter der Modellierung – Operative Artefakte in Entwurfsprozessen der Architektur und des Ingenieurwesens. W. Fink, Munich
  Bhatt, M. and Schultz, C.