Modeling Mental Spatial Knowledge Processing as Integrating Paradigm for Spatial Reasoning

Foundations and Applications of Spatio-Temporal Reasoning (FASTR)

Volume

Papers from the 2003 AAAI Spring Symposium

Contents

Human reasoning about spatial environments or spatial configurations is often based on spatio-analogical mental representations (mental images). Due to restrictions in processing and storage capacity in human working memory, mental images are constructed dynamically as highly problem- adequate representations to infer a wanted spatial result. In this contribution, I argue for the investigation of reasoning processes in mental images with respect to the integration of different aspects of spatial knowledge processing. From an AI perspective the properties of spatial knowledge processing in mental images point to a promising field of research in spatial and spatio-temporal reasoning.