Description:
One aspect of the overall goal for this
tutorial
is to help develop an approximate, intuitive
feel for human memory and
problem solving processes which will serve
as a context for use in
designing information systems and supporting
decision making in spatial
and other tasks. Another aspect is to
develop that
understanding in a context which illustrates
some applications to HCI design
and which facilitates further learning
or teaching.
Biographical Sketch
Tom Hewett is Professor of Psychology
at Drexel University
where he teaches courses on Cognitive
Psychology, Psychology of Human
Computer Interaction, and Problem Solving
and Creativity. He has offered
variants of this tutorial to hundreds
of interface designers at both
conferences and in-house training sessions.
He is a published courseware
author, has worked on the development
and evaluation of several projects,
and is currently working with a group
of computer scientists who are
developing a Scientific Problem Solving
Environment which integrates
symbolic and numeric computing. Dr. Hewett
chaired the ACM SIGCHI
Curriculum Development Group which developed
recommendations for
undergraduate curricula and courses for
HCI and was one of the general
co-chairs for the CHI '94 conference held
in Boston, MA, USA.
Description:
Recently, composition based reasoning
with binary relations has been of
interest to the QSR community and the
expressive power, consistency and
complexity of relational reasoning has
become an object of study.
It has been known for some time, that the
expressiveness of reasoning with
basic operations on binary relations is
equal to the expressive power of
the three variable fragment of first order
logic (see Tarski/Givant, 1987,
and the references therein. Thus, it seems
worthwhile to use methods of
relation algebras, initiated by Tarski
(1941), to study part of and
contact relations in their own right,
and then explore their expressive
power with respect to various spatial
domains.
In this tutorial, we present the basic
theory and main results of
relation algebras, and present their expressive
power of part of and contact
relations on well known spatial domains.
Ivo Duentsch
School of Information and Software Engineering,
Faculty of Informatics, University of
Ulster
Ph: (+44)(0) 1232 368976
http://www.infj.ulst.ac.uk/staff/I.Duentsch
Description:
In this tutorial, we will discuss the
study of errors in spatial knowledge in
larger-scale spaces, places and environments
such as rooms, buildings,
campuses, neighborhoods, cities, landscapes,
and regions. Different types of
spatial knowledge may be metric, nonmetric,
or fuzzy metric. Various meanings
of error will be considered, but the focus
will be on differences between
estimated and actual ("objectively correct")
spatial relations. We will go
over methods for the empirical study of
spatial error, including their
strengths and limitations. Several issues
involved in the analysis and
interpretation of spatial cognitive data
will be discussed, including
distinctions between absolute, constant,
and variable error; within-subject
vs. between-subject
aggregation; special aspects of directional and distance
estimates; and the use of multidimensional
scaling (MDS). Some common
patterns
of errors in the scientific literature
will be presented. Attendees will
perform some demonstration exercises during
the tutorial.
Biographical Sketch:
Daniel R. Montello is Associate Professor
in the Department of Geography, and
Affiliated Faculty in the Department of
Psychology, at the University of
California, Santa Barbara. He has a Ph.D.
in Psychology from Arizona State
University and was a Postdoctoral Affiliate
at the Institute of Child
Development, University of Minnesota.
His research interests are in the areas
of spatial perception, cognition, and
behavior; cognitive issues in
cartography and
GIS; spatial aspects of social behavior; and environmental psychology and
behavioral geography. He may be reached
at: montello@geog.ucsb.edu
Description:
During the recent years, a new range of
application has appeared for robots:
the so-called "Service Robotics". Service
robots are artificial autonomous
mobile systems that work in the immediate
vicinity of human beings. They,
e.g., deliver mail in an office building,
transport food in a hospital, or
guide persons through a museum. In contrast
to robot arms in factories, this
new kind of robot has to work in places
not specially designed for it, i.e.
it has to navigate in a dynamic, partially
unknown environment. Therefore,
it needs sensors to perceive its surroundings,
and it must accumulate the
readings of these sensors to a - maybe
only local - model of the world to be
able to react in an appropriate way. This
link from perception to action is
the major topic in the research field
of "Cognitive Robotics".
The tutorial will try to give a rough
survey about this area, and it will
attempt to arouse interest for further
studies, i.e. to work with autonomous
robots. Mainly, it will focus on navigation.
Robot navigation consists of
two basic tasks: A robot has to determine
its current position
(self-localization), and it must be able
to perform at least one step
towards the goal location (perform an
action). The combination of both
generates a robot's "behavior". As some
navigation approaches in cognitive
robotics are inspired biologically or
psychologically, the tutorial will
give some brief examples of navigation
techniques of natural systems. An
important means for self-localization
and planning a way to the goal are
maps - either metrical or topological.
It will be shown how maps can be
learned, and how they are used in robot
navigation.
Dr. Thomas Röfer
Bremer Institut für Sichere Systeme,
Fachbereich 3 - Mathematik und Informatik,
Universität Bremen, Postfach 330
440,
28334 Bremen, Germany