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Spatial Prepositions and Vague Quantifiers: Implementing the Functional Geometric Framework

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Book cover Spatial Cognition IV. Reasoning, Action, Interaction (Spatial Cognition 2004)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3343))

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Abstract

There is much empirical evidence showing that factors other than the relative positions of objects in Euclidean space are important in the comprehension of a wide range of spatial prepositions in English and other languages. We first the overview the functional geometric framework [11] which puts “what” and “where” information together to underpin the situation specific meaning of spatial terms. We then outline an implementation of this framework. The computational model for the processing of visual scenes and the identification of the appropriate spatial preposition consists of three main modules: (1) Vision Processing, (2) Elman Network, (3) Dual-Route Network. Mirroring data from experiments with human participants, we show that the model is both able to predict what will happen to objects in a scene, and use these judgements to influence the appropriateness of over/under/above/below to describe where objects are located in the scene. Extensions of the model to other prepositions and quantifiers are discussed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Thinking and Language, School of Psychology, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, United Kingdom

    Kenny R. Coventry, Alison Bacon, Stephen Newstead & Lynn V. Richards

  2. Adaptive Behaviour & Cognition Research Group, School of Computing Comms & Electronics, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, United Kingdom

    Angelo Cangelosi & Rohanna Rajapakse

  3. Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Alexandra House, 17 Queen Square, WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom

    Dan Joyce

Authors
  1. Kenny R. Coventry
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  2. Angelo Cangelosi
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  3. Rohanna Rajapakse
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  4. Alison Bacon
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  5. Stephen Newstead
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  6. Dan Joyce
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  7. Lynn V. Richards
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition, Universität Bremen, Bibliothekstr. 1, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Christian Freksa

  2. Center for Cognitive Science, Friedrichstraße 50, 79098, Freiburg, Germany

    Markus Knauff

  3. Universität Bremen and DFKI-Lab Bremen, P.O. Box, Germany

    Bernd Krieg-Brückner

  4. Institut für Informatik, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Bernhard Nebel

  5. SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition, Universität Bremen, Germany

    Thomas Barkowsky

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Coventry, K.R. et al. (2005). Spatial Prepositions and Vague Quantifiers: Implementing the Functional Geometric Framework. In: Freksa, C., Knauff, M., Krieg-Brückner, B., Nebel, B., Barkowsky, T. (eds) Spatial Cognition IV. Reasoning, Action, Interaction. Spatial Cognition 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3343. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-32255-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-32255-9_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-25048-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32255-9

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