Mental models: towards a cognitive science of language, inference, and consciousness
Mental models: towards a cognitive science of language, inference, and consciousness
Reasoning about temporal relations: a maximal tractable subclass of Allen's interval algebra
Journal of the ACM (JACM)
Maintaining knowledge about temporal intervals
Communications of the ACM
A Cognitive Assessment of Topological Spatial Relations: Results from an Empirical Investigation
COSIT '97 Proceedings of the International Conference on Spatial Information Theory: A Theoretical Basis for GIS
Reference Frames for Spatial Inference in Text Understanding
Spatial Cognition, An Interdisciplinary Approach to Representing and Processing Spatial Knowledge
Shape Nouns and Shape Concepts: A Geometry for 'Corner'
Spatial Cognition, An Interdisciplinary Approach to Representing and Processing Spatial Knowledge
The Influence of Linear Shapes on Solving Interval-Based Configuration Problems
Spatial Cognition II, Integrating Abstract Theories, Empirical Studies, Formal Methods, and Practical Applications
Spatial Reasoning: No Need for Visual Information
COSIT 2001 Proceedings of the International Conference on Spatial Information Theory: Foundations of Geographic Information Science
A model for relational reasoning as verbal reasoning
Cognitive Systems Research
Fmri evidence for a three-stage model of deductive reasoning
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
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This chapter gives an overview of our ongoing experimental research in the MeMoSpace project, concerning the cognitive processes underlying human spatial reasoning. Our theoretical background is mental model theory, which conceives reasoning as a process in which mental models of the given information are constructed and inspected to solve a reasoning task. We first report some findings of our previous work and then two new experiments on spatial relational inference, which were conducted to investigate well-known effects from relational and syllogistic reasoning. (1) Continuity effect: n-term-series problems with continuous (W r1 X, X r2 Y, Y r3 Z) and semi-continuous (X r2 Y, Y r3 Z, W r1 X) premise order are easier than tasks with discontinuous order (Y r3 Z, W r1 X, X r2 Y). (2) Figural bias: the order of terms in the premises (X r Y, Y r Z or Y r X, Z r Y) effects the order of terms in the conclusion (X r Z or Z r X). In the first experiment subjects made more errors and took more time to process the premises when in discontinuous order. In the second experiment subjects showed the general preference for the term order Z r X in the generated conclusions, modulated by a "figural bias": subjects used X r Z more often if the premise term order was X r Y, Y r Z, whereas Z r X was used most often for the premise term order Y r X, Z r Y. Results are discussed in the framework of mental model theory with special reference to computational models of spatial reasoning.