Conceptual Framework for Modeling Dynamic Paths from Natural Language Expressions

Abstract

Text documents frequently contain descriptions of different kinds of movements by individual persons, groups, animals, vehicles, or other moving objects. Comprehending and modeling the semantics of movement is an area of interest for geographic information science. In this article, we show how text documents that contain movement verbs can be analyzed for deriving representations of movement or dynamic paths. A conceptual framework is presented that provides the foundations necessary for deriving dynamic paths automatically from natural language descriptions and representing these dynamic paths in an information system, such as a geographic information system. In this research, a linguistic analysis of dynamic paths is presented and linked to a spatiotemporal representation of paths. We show how movement descriptions in text can be mapped to a set of elemental components including source, destination, route, direction, distance, start time, end time, and duration. Together, this set of path components captures the spatiotemporal characteristics of the path of a moving object as described using natural language. A systematic examination of these components builds a foundation for understanding more complex scenarios involving discourse (composed of consecutive sentences). Additional aspects reflecting important semantics about the movement characteristics of objects and discussed here are the shape of the path and granularity of modeling.

Narrative Geospatial Knowledge in Ethnographies: Representation and Reasoning

“…The approach presented here can also be compared to works that developed conceptual primitives and frameworks for the modeling of spatial-temporal activities expressed in natural languages [10,13,18]. However, here our narrative geospatial domain is of a much larger scale.…”

Cognitive Invariants of Geographic Event Conceptualization: What Matters and What Refines?

“…Step by step we add to a cognitive theory of geographic event conceptualization that is grounded in the theoretical foundations laid out in spatial information science (e.g., Kurata & Egenhofer, 2009;Stewart Hornsby & Li, 2009) but that also allows for evaluating proposed formalisms. We consider this step by step approach essential, as it basically combines the theory building that we find in psychology and cognitive science with topics relevant to spatial information theory.…”

“…Topology, unquestionably, is playing a central role in characterizing movement patterns and in bridging the (semantic) gap between a formal characterization of movement patterns and the human understanding of movement patterns (e.g., Kurata & Egenhofer, 2009). Numerous research papers address the characterization of the movement patterns of particularly individual agents (whether they are people, vehicles, or hurricanes) using topological characterization (e.g., Stewart Hornsby & Li, 2009). The motivation to focus on topological characterization stems from the importance that topology plays in a) efficiently representing spatial information, b) in the cognitive understanding of spatial environments, and c) linguistic distinction of spatial relations that are reflected by topological equivalence classes (Cohn, 1997).…”

Modelling movement patterns using topological relations between a directed line and a region

“…In particular, the movement of a moving point with respect to a region can be modeled as a topological relation between a directed line and a region in order to reflect how this moving point evolves inside, outside or on the boundary of the region [1,2]. A qualitative representation of topological relations has for a long time been paid much attention in various disciplines such as geographic information science, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and cognitive science [3][4][5][6]. Several models have been developed to describe topological relations, e.g., 9-intersection model (9IM) [7], calculus-based model (CBM) [8], and Voronoi-based 9-intersection model (V9I) [9].…”