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International Conference on Spatial Information Theory

COSIT 2009: Spatial Information Theory pp 177–194Cite as

The Endpoint Hypothesis: A Topological-Cognitive Assessment of Geographic Scale Movement Patterns

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 5756))

Abstract

Movement patterns of individual entities at the geographic scale are becoming a prominent research focus in spatial sciences. One pertinent question is how cognitive and formal characterizations of movement patterns relate. In other words, are (mostly qualitative) formal characterizations cognitively adequate? This article experimentally evaluates movement patterns that can be characterized as paths through a conceptual neighborhood graph, that is, two extended spatial entities changing their topological relationship gradually. The central questions addressed are: (a) Do humans naturally use topology to create cognitive equivalent classes, that is, is topology the basis for categorizing movement patterns spatially? (b) Are ‘all’ topological relations equally salient, and (c) does language influence categorization. The first two questions are addressed using a modification of the endpoint hypothesis stating that: movement patterns are distinguished by the topological relation they end in. The third question addresses whether language has an influence on the classification of movement patterns, that is, whether there is a difference between linguistic and non-linguistic category construction. In contrast to our previous findings we were able to document the importance of topology for conceptualizing movement patterns but also reveal differences in the cognitive saliency of topological relations. The latter aspect calls for a weighted conceptual neighborhood graph to cognitively adequately model human conceptualization processes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, GeoVISTA Center, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Alexander Klippel & Rui Li

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  1. Alexander Klippel
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  2. Rui Li
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Iowa, 316 Jessup Hall, 52242, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Kathleen Stewart Hornsby

  2. Naval Academy Research Institute, 29240, Brest Naval, France

    Christophe Claramunt

  3. Groupe Cognition Humaine, LIMSI-CNRS, Université de Paris-Sud, 91403, Orsay, France

    Michel Denis

  4. LIMSI-CNRS, Université de Paris-Sud, 91403, Orsay, France

    Gérard Ligozat

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Klippel, A., Li, R. (2009). The Endpoint Hypothesis: A Topological-Cognitive Assessment of Geographic Scale Movement Patterns. In: Hornsby, K.S., Claramunt, C., Denis, M., Ligozat, G. (eds) Spatial Information Theory. COSIT 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5756. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03832-7_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03832-7_11

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