Skip to main content

A Geometric Agent Following Route Instructions

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Spatial Cognition III (Spatial Cognition 2002)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2685))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

We present the model of a Geometric Agent that can navigate on routes in a virtual planar environment according to natural-language instructions presented in advance. The Geometric Agent provides a new method to study the interaction between the spatial information given in route instructions and the spatial information gained from perception. Perception and action of the Geometric Agent are simulated. Therefore, the influence of differences in both linguistic and perceptual skills can be subject to further studies employing the Geometric Agent. The goal of this investigation is to build a formal framework that can demonstrate the performance of specific theories of the interpretation of natural-language in the presence of sensing. In this article, we describe the main sub-tasks of instructed navigation and the internal representations the Geometric Agent builds up in order to carry them out.

The research reported in this article was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinchaft (DFG) and carried out in the context of the project “Axiomatik räumlicher Konzepte” (HA 1237-7) that is imbedded in the priority program on “Spatial Cognition”. We thank the participants of the “route instruction” project (acadamic year 2001/02) for support in the collection of verbal data and the analysis of navigation tasks, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Agre, P. E. & Chapman, D. (1990). What are plans for? Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 6. 17–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, G. L. (1997). From knowledge to words to wayfinding: Issues in the production and comprehension of route directions. In S.C. Hirtle & A.U. Frank (eds.), Spatial Information Theory (pp. 363–372). Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22. 577–660.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crangle, C. & P. Suppes (1994). Language and Learning for Robots. Stanford: CSLI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denis, M. (1997). The description of routes: A cognitive approach to the production of spatial discourse. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive 16. 409–458.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eschenbach, C. (1999). Geometric structures of frames of reference and natural language semantics. Spatial Cognition and Computation 1. 329–348.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eschenbach, C. & L. Kulik (1997). An axiomatic approach to the spatial relations underlying ‘left’-‘right’ and ‘in front of’-;‘behind’. In G. Brewka, C. Habel & B. Nebel (eds.), KI-97: Advances in Artificial Intelligence (pp. 207–218). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eschenbach, C., L. Tschander, C. Habel & L. Kulik (2000). Lexical specifications of paths. In C. Freksa, W. Brauer, C. Habel & K.F. Wender (eds.), Spatial Cognition II (pp. 127–144). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Fontaine, S. & M. Denis (1999). The production of route instructions in underground and urban environments. In C. Freksa & D.M. Mark (eds.), Spatial Information Theory (pp. 83–94). Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraczak, L. (1998). Generating ‘mental maps’ from route descriptions. In P. Olivier & K.-P. Gapp (eds.), Representation and Processing of Spatial Expressions (pp. 185–200). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, A. (2000). Spatial communication with maps: Defining the correctness of maps using a multi-agent simulation. In C. Freksa, W. Brauer, C. Habel & K.F. Wender (eds.), Spatial Cognition II (pp. 80–99). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Habel, C. (1987). Cognitive linguistics: The processing of spatial concepts. T. A. Informations (Bulletin semestriel de l’ATALA, Association pour le traitement automatique du langage) 28. 21–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Habel, C., S. Pribbenow & G. Simmons (1995). Partonomies and depictions: A hybrid approach. In J. Glasgow, H. Narayanan & B. Chandrasekaran (eds.): Diagrammatic Reasoning: Cognitive and Computational Perspectives (pp. 627–653). Cambridge, MA: MIT-Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackendoff, R. (1990). Semantic Structures. Cambridge: MIT-Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaufmann, I. (1995). Konzeptuelle Grundlagen semantischer Dekompositionsstrukturen. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, W. (1979). Wegauskünfte. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 33. 9–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, W. (1982). Local deixis in route directions. In R.J. Jarvella & W. Klein (eds.), Speech, Place, and Action (pp. 161–182). Chichester: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Labrou, Y., Finin, T. & Peng, Y. (1999). Agent communication languages: The current landscape. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 14. 45–52.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levinson, S. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: crosslinguistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M. A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M. F. Garrett (eds.), Language and Space (pp. 109–169). Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ligozat, G. (2000). From language to motion, and back: Generating and using route descriptions. In D.N. Chistodoulakis (ed.) NLP 2000, LNCS 1835. pp. 328–345.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lovelace, K. L., M. Hegarty & D. R. Montello (1999). Elements of good route directions in familiar and unfamiliar environments. In C. Freksa & D.M. Mark (eds.), Spatial Information Theory. (pp. 65–82). Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mallot, H. A. (1999). Spatial cognition: Behavioral competences, neural mechanisms, and evolutionary scaling. Kognitionswissenschaft 8. 40–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mann, G. (1996). Control of a Navigating Rational Agent by Natural Language. PhD Thesis. School of Computer Science and Engineering,University of New South Wales, Sydney.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmidtke, H. R. (2001). The house is north of the river: Relative localization of extended objects. In D. R. Montello (ed.), Spatial Information Theory (pp. 414–430). Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmidtke, H. R., L. Tschander, C. Eschenbach & C. Habel, (to appear). Change of orientation. In J. Slack & E. van der Zee (eds.), Representing Direction in Language and Space. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trullier, O., S. I. Wiener, A. Berthoz & J.-A. Meyer (1997). Biologically based artificial navigation systems: Review and prospects. Progress in Neurobiology, 51. 483–544.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tversky, B. & P. U. Lee (1999). On pictorial and verbal tools for conveying routes. In C. Freksa & D.M. Mark (eds.), Spatial Information Theory. (pp. 51–64). Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vere, S. & Bickmore, T. (1990) A basic agent. Computational Intelligence, 6, 41–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Werner, S., B. Krieg-Brückner & T. Herrmann (2000). Modelling navigational knowledge by route graphs. In C. Freksa, W. Brauer, C. Habel & K.F. Wender (eds.), Spatial Cognition II (pp. 295–316). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Wunderlich, D. & R. Reinelt (1982). How to get there from here. In R.J. Jarvella & W. Klein (eds), Speech, Place, and Action (pp. 183–201). Chichester: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Tschander, L.B., Schmidtke, H.R., Eschenbach, C., Habel, C., Kulik, L. (2003). A Geometric Agent Following Route Instructions. In: Freksa, C., Brauer, W., Habel, C., Wender, K.F. (eds) Spatial Cognition III. Spatial Cognition 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2685. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45004-1_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45004-1_6

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-40430-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45004-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics