Pictorial Representations of Routes: Chunking Route Segments during Comprehension

Abstract

Abstract. Route directions are usually conveyed either by graphical means, i.e. by illustrating the route in a map or drawing a sketch-maps or, linguistically by giving spoken or written route instructions, or by combining both kinds of external representations. In most cases route directions are given in advance, i.e. prior to the actual traveling. But they may also be communicated quasisimultaneously to the movement along the route, for example, in the case of incar navigation systems. We dub this latter kind accompanying route directions. Accompanying route direction may be communicated in a dialogue, i.e. with hearer feedback, or, in a monologue, i.e. without hearer feedback. In this article we focus on accompanying route directions without hearer feedback. We start with theoretical considerations from spatial cognition research about the interaction between internal and external representations interconnecting linguistic aspects of verbal route directions with findings from cognitive psychology on route knowledge. In particular we are interested in whether speakers merge elementary route segments into higher order chunks in accompanying route directions. This process, which we identify as spatial chunking, is subsequently investigated in a case study. We have speakers produce accompanying route directions without hearer feedback on the basis of a route that is presented in a spatially veridical map. We vary presentation mode of the route: In the static mode the route in presented as a discrete line, in the dynamic mode, it is presented as a moving dot. Similarities across presentation modes suggest overall organization principles for route directions, which are both independent of the type of route direction-in advance versus accompanying-and of presentation mode-static versus dynamic. We conclude that spatial chunking is a robust and efficient conceptual process that is partly independent of preplanning.

A Model for Context-Specific Route Directions

“…to link an action to a specific location (a decision point) along the route. And third, another important mechanism in human route directions is spatial chunking [2] that combines several instructions of consecutive decision points into a single instruction. For example, "turn left at the third intersection" is a combination of going twice straight and then turning left.…”

“…This validation is performed in the third step in a postprocessing process; Guard is flexible with respect to the principles used in this step. It, for example, allows integrating the chunking principles presented by [2] or [1]. Generally, chunks are pruned of the last covered decision point until they are either valid or empty (being removed) because they do not comply to the higher-order principles at all.…”

Fictive motion in the context of mountaineering

“…For instance, combining several route segments into one bears strong resemblance to landmark-based chunking (Klippel, Tappe & Habel, 2002;Klippel & Winter, 2005) which makes further route instructions irrelevant and allows several landmark-based segments to be encoded through one verb of motion. Inclusion of two trajectors is the outcome of the relevance of two levels of granularity of the motion event (Tenbrink & Winter, 2008).…”

Interactive cartographic route descriptions

“…The Interactive Route Description also complements information processing [51]. It facilitates the user to perform processes such as spatial chunking which can be defined as the grouping of navigation instructions [29]. However unlike a sketch map the Interactive Route Description is not affected so strongly by individual drawing ability [4].…”