Multiple Modalities and Multiple Frames of Reference for Spatial Knowledge Call      Description      Leaders      Meeting Topics      VARENIUS HOME

Initiative Description

Knowledge about space can be obtained directly, through actual navigation for example, or indirectly, through depictions and descriptions. Direct experience includes locomotion through the environment (crawling, walking, running, bicycling, driving, flying, etc.) as well as stationary viewing (at an entrance or scenic overlook). Additionally, direct experience is multimodal, including proprioceptive, kinesthetic, auditory, visual, and other sensory input. Secondary environmental experience can be derived through both static and dynamic mediums. Static pictoral representations include maps, diagrams, paintings, photographs, and 3-D physical models. These representations are smaller scale models of environments and are typically sensed via vision, but can be experienced through other modes, such as tactile and/or auditory. Dynamic representations take maps, diagrams, paintings, photographs, and 3-D models and animate them to show change over time, rather than "snap-shots" in time. Advances in technology have made these dynamic representations, in the form of virtual tours or virtual reality models, a significantly more common experience. These secondary representations can also be sensed multimodally, although visual input is generally primary. Finally, although the furthest removed from the actual environment, language, either written or spoken, is often used to convey spatial information. Although the specific conventions for relating spatial information vary throughout the world's languages, all can be used for this purpose, including systems considered special cases of language, mathematics and gesture systems.

In conjunction with the various ways of experiencing space, environments can be viewed from different perspectives, and conceived of from perspectives that have not or cannot be viewed. These perspectives include the vertical ("bird's eye" or survey) view of a map, the oblique perspective as if looking in a valley from a hilltop, or the horizontal (route) perspective experienced via locomotion through the environment. Spaces can be perceived as surrounding or engulfing people or objects, such as buildings or cities, or spaces can be experienced as if separate from, or outside of the space, such as a map or scenic overlook. Today, the ability to use computer-generated representations to switch between perspectives allows nearly simultaneous views of different perspectives and scales.

Multiple modalities and multiple frames for the acquisition of spatial knowledge raise a number of new questions, as well as revive a number of old questions, about spatial perception and cognition. For example, how do children acquire spatial knowledge and expertise with different modalities?; how does the ability to acquire and use spatial knowledge vary over the life-span?; do people integrate and reconcile spatial information from various modalties?; are there relative advantages or disadvantages of different kinds of spatial knowledge for different tasks?; how is spatial information from different modalities and different perspectives reconciled? These and other questions have arisen in linguistics, philosophy, computer science, anthropology, and psychology, as well as in theoretical and applied contexts in geography. The answers, however, remain largely unclear, especially with respect to human behavior and learning in natural situations. Understanding how people combine or juggle spatial information from a variety of sources and in multiple forms is important to geographic information science in general, and for geographic information systems (GIS) in particular.

At one level, a greater understanding of how various spatial information is acquired, integrated and utilized will allow researchers more intimate access to the seemingly complex, spatially motivated, human decision making processes (e.g., where we live, work, recreate, navigate, etc.). At a more practical level, understanding the influence of various spatial information on decision making processes will foster the design of computerized systems (such as GIS, vehicle navigation aids, real-estate guides) that provide spatial information in a way that is useful to the human user. The result, therefore, is a better understanding of the "spatial world" on the part of the human user, and subsequently, enhanced decision making and increased user satisfaction.