The Influence of Reference Frame Selection on Spatial Template Construction

Carlson-Radvansky, Laura A.; Logan, Gordon D.

doi:10.1006/jmla.1997.2519

Cited by 147 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…For example, experimental studies on English showed that (1) the uses of angular terms refer to regions not points Sadler 1996 andCarlson-Radvansky andLogan 1997). Thus, there are situations such as those in which objects located diagonally with respect to the viewer's orientation, for which, at least, two angular relationals can compete.…”

Section: Recent Findings On the Spoken Language Expressions On Angulamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, there are situations such as those in which objects located diagonally with respect to the viewer's orientation, for which, at least, two angular relationals can compete. (2) The use of one pair of angular terms (left-right) over another (front-back) is very much influenced by the reference frame employed (Carlson-Radvansky and Logan 1997). Additionally, the uses of angular terms are all influenced by the contextual/functional information.…”

Section: Recent Findings On the Spoken Language Expressions On Angulamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Left/right and front/back in sign, speech, and co-speech gestures: What do data from Turkish Sign Language, Croatian Sign Language, American Sign Language, Turkish, Croatian, and English reveal?

Arık

2011

Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics

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Research has shown that spoken languages differ from each other in their representation of space. Using hands, body, and physical space in front of signers to represent space, do sign languages differ from each other? To what extent are they similar to spoken languages in their expressions of spatial relations? The present study targeted these questions by exploring the descriptions of static situations in sign languages (Turkish Sign Language, Croatian Sign Language, American Sign Language) and spoken languages, including co-speech gestures (Turkish, Croatian, and English). It is found that signed and spoken languages differ from each other in their linguistic constructions for the left/right and front/back spatial relation. They also differ from one another in their mapping strategies. Crucially, being a signer does not require more direct iconic mappings than a speaker would use. It is also found that co-speech gestures can complement spoken language descriptions.

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Section: Recent Findings On the Spoken Language Expressions On Angulamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Recent Findings On the Spoken Language Expressions On Angulamentioning

confidence: 99%

Left/right and front/back in sign, speech, and co-speech gestures: What do data from Turkish Sign Language, Croatian Sign Language, American Sign Language, Turkish, Croatian, and English reveal?

Arık

2011

Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics

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“…This paper focuses on one essential step: the creation of a notational expression-in this case, an equation-that models a situation. One possible account suggests that much of the time this equation-construction process involves selecting an appropriate template-say, a memorized equation pattern such as F=ma, y=mx+b, ax 2 +bx+c=0, or base+change (Carlson-Radvansky & Logan, 1997;Fisher Borchert, & Bassok, 2011;Sherin, 2001)-and applying structure-mapping (Gentner, 1983;Hummel & Holyoak, 1997) to align that structure with other representations of the scene, such as written descriptions, pictures, or mental simulations (Bassok, Chase, and Martin, 1998). For example, Abstract numeric relations 5 asked to find the total weight of a case with 6 apples, each apple weighing 10 ounces, one might retrieve an a times b frame, and fill in the mapping a=6, b=10 via alignment to yield 6*10.…”

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confidence: 99%

Abstract numeric relations and the visual structure of algebra.

Landy¹,

Brookes²,

Smout³

2014

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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Formal algebras are among the most powerful and general mechanisms for expressing quantitative relational statements, and yet even university engineering students, who are relatively proficient with algebraic manipulation, struggle with and often fail to correctly deploy basic aspects of algebraic notation (Clement, 1982). In the cognitive tradition, it has often been assumed that skilled users of these formalisms treat situations in terms of semantic properties encoded in an abstract syntax that governs the use of notation without particular regard to the details of the physical structure of the equation itself (Anderson, 2005;Hegarty, Mayer, & Monk, 1995). We explore how the notational structure of verbal descriptions or algebraic equations (e.g., the spatial proximity of certain words, or the visual alignment of numbers and symbols in an equation) plays a role in the process of interpreting or constructing symbolic equations. More specifically, we propose that construction processes involve an alignment of notational structures across representation systems, biasing reasoners toward the selection of formal notations that maintain the visuo-spatial structure of source representations. For example, in the statement "There are five elephants for every three rhinoceroses," the spatial proximity of "five" and "elephants; and "three" and "rhinoceroses" will bias reasoners to write the incorrect expression 5E = 3R because that expression maintains the spatial relationships encoded in the source representation. In three experiments, participants construct equations with given structure, based on story problems with a variety of phrasings. We demonstrate how the notational alignment approach accounts naturally for a variety of previously reported phenomena in equation In the case of symbolic algebra, a tension between formal syntactic rules and visual patterns can arise. The formal syntax of algebra encodes relations among quantities by abstract rules specified in terms of ordinal relations among symbol tokens. The same mathematical expression can be rearranged in a number of different ways without altering the formal content of the equation. On Abstract numeric relations 4 the other hand, a particular symbol system such as mathematics uses spatial relations in unique ways to convey additional meaning (Sherin, 2001). In the usual algebraic syntax, this tension creates visual structures that are sometimes aligned with (Landy & Goldstone, 2007a), and sometimes opposed to (Kirshner, 1989;Kirshner & Awtry, 2004;Marquis, 1988), underlying mathematical content. A rich notational calculus such as modern algebra replaces some conceptual relations with concrete organizational relations specified by principles of visualization and perceptual organization (Dantzig, 1930;Malle, 1993;Goldstone, Landy, & Son, 2010). For example, the relatively large space surrounding the equals sign in an arithmetic equation allows spatial grouping to serve as a proxy for the conceptual separation of an equation into left-hand and right-hand sides ...

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“…This list can be extended further for composite directional spatial descriptions (e.g. "on the right of ","at the front of ") where frame of reference and frame of reference ambiguity must be considered [7,16,37,39], and the contribution of the topological term (e.g., at, on, in) to the overall semantics of the description is also a factor [19].…”

Section: Natural Language Processing and Spatial Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%