What's in a mental model? on conceptual models in reasoning with spatial descriptions

  • Authors:

  • Goran Hagert

  • Affiliations:

  • Uppsala Programming Methodology and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Computing Science Department, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

  • Venue:
  • IJCAI'85 Proceedings of the 9th international joint conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 1
  • Year:
  • 1985

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Abstract

A frequently used concept in Cognitive Science research is the notion of a mesial model Several very different areas of research use the concept as an explanatory construct. In this paper we explore one meaning of the concept developed for explaining cognitive reasoning with spatial concepts. Several experiments have been interpreted as showing that an abstract propositional representation is not sufficient for understanding reasoning in this domain. Another form of representation is the mental model which has been proposed to explain the obtained results. In contrast to this, we discuss some steps towards a computational theory founded on the notions of a conceptual model and levels of reasoning which is able to reproduce the experimental results within a single abstract form of representation. Some empirical consequences are outlined and tested. A tentative conclusion is that the experimental results do not reflect fundamental differences in representational form but strategy differences in how to solve the tasks.