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process and considered how to make the analysis results transparent by visualizing
the reasoning and the knowledge used. There is also a lot of research that has been
done that focuses on how to support the analytical reasoning process (e.g. Jankun-
Kelly et al. 2007 ; Shrinivasan and van Wijk 2008 ; Gotz and Zhou 2009 ). Of these
only Hall et al. ( 2013 ) studied reasoning in a spatial context, but without paying
attention to the role of the basic spatial and temporal relations.
This study explored the link between the basic spatio-temporal relations and
human qualitative reasoning through a case study. In the case study four insights
gained by an analyst while watching a simple animated map were dissected and
broken down into chains of reasoning arising from the basic relations. The study
looked at how the basic relations translate into qualitative human reasoning. The
study also identified other factors that were of importance when the analyst gained
an insight. The research method applied in the case study was reverse engineering
of insights through introspection, supported by a thorough literature review.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. First, the results of the literature
review are presented in the next section. After this, the case study is introduced,
followed by the results section, which is divided into two parts. The first part
introduces a framework of spatio-temporal cognitive concepts and the second part
deals with the dissection of the insights. The paper concludes with a discussion of
the results.
Theoretical Background
This section presents the theoretical background to the study. First, reasoning and
knowledge, as they are understood in this paper, are introduced, and, after this, the
focus moves to cognitive theories of spatio-temporal reasoning. The last part of this
section introduces work done in computer science to make computers able to deal
intelligently with spatio-temporal relations.
Reasoning and Knowledge Reasoning is the process by which, through a set of
mental processes, we derive inferences or conclusions from a set of premises
(Samarapungavan 2009 ). There are two main types of reasoning: deduction and
induction (Johnson-Laird 2006 ). Deductive reasoning is based only on the infor-
mation given in the premises and on logic. It is the process of establishing that a
conclusion is a valid inference from certain premises. Any other type of reasoning is
based on induction, which is reasoning that goes beyond the given information and
rules out more possibilities than the premises do (Johnson-Laird 2006 ). This is
possible because inductive reasoning depends on knowledge that is not given in the
premises. By going beyond the given information, by using existing knowledge,
inductive reasoning results in new knowledge.
In this respect, knowledge is defined as information which has been cognitively
processed and integrated into an existing human knowledge structure, information
as data given meaning through interpretation, and data as symbols or isolated and
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