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A Comparison of the Cognitive Difficulties Posed by SPARQL Query Constructs

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Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (EKAW 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 12387))

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Abstract

This study investigated difficulties in the comprehension of SPARQL. In particular, it compared the declarative and navigational styles present in the language, and various operators used in SPARQL property paths. The study involved participants selecting possible answers given a SPARQL query and knowledgebase. In general, no significant differences were found in terms of the response time and accuracy with which participants could answer questions expressed in either a declarative or navigational form. However, UNION did take significantly longer to comprehend than both braces and vertical line in property paths; with braces being faster than vertical line. Inversion and negated property paths both proved difficult, with their combination being very difficult indeed. Questions involving MINUS were answered more accurately than those involving negation in property paths, in particular where predicates were inverted. Both involve negation, but the semantics are different. With the MINUS questions, negation and inversion can be considered separately; with property paths, negation and inversion need to be considered together. Participants generally expressed a preference for data represented graphically, and this preference was significantly correlated with accuracy of comprehension. Implications for the design and use of query languages are discussed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although part of the language’s declarative style, MINUS was introduced in SPARQL1.1.

  2. 2.

    https://jena.apache.org/documentation/fuseki2/.

  3. 3.

    See https://github.com/w3c/sparql-12/issues/101. The likely reason for braces not being included in SPARQL1.1 property paths is the difficulty in deciding whether to opt for counting (bag) or non-counting (set) semantics. The former was the default in the original SPARQL standard. However, after the discovery of possible performance issues (see [12]), non-counting semantics were introduced in SPARQL1.1 specifically for property paths of unlimited length, i.e. using star (*) or plus (+); while leaving counting semantics as the default for all other SPARQL constructs.

  4. 4.

    Provided by Empirisoft: http://www.empirisoft.com.

  5. 5.

    The Wilcoxon test is a non-parametric test used in a within-participants study to compare two conditions. It can be considered as a non-parametric analogue of a paired t-test.

  6. 6.

    The Wilcoxon test is a non-parametric test used in a within participants study to compare more than two conditions. It can be regarded as a non-parametric analogue of a repeated measures ANOVA.

  7. 7.

    Spearman’s rank correlation is a non-parametric measure of the correlation between the ranks of two variables. In this and subsequent Spearman’s rank tests, the exact p-value could not be computed because of ties.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all study participants; and also Enrico Daga for initial suggestions and assisting with participant contacts.

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  1. Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK

    Paul Warren & Paul Mulholland

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  1. Paul Warren
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  2. Paul Mulholland
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Correspondence to Paul Warren .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    C. Maria Keet

  2. Institute of Data Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Michel Dumontier

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Warren, P., Mulholland, P. (2020). A Comparison of the Cognitive Difficulties Posed by SPARQL Query Constructs. In: Keet, C.M., Dumontier, M. (eds) Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management. EKAW 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12387. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61244-3_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61244-3_1

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