Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The Framework of Spatio-Temporal Cognitive Concepts
The framework builds on the basic relations in space and time and consists of three
levels of spatio-temporal cognitive concepts. The cognitive concepts are the build-
ing blocks of the insights. In general, they are spatio-temporal properties of the data
perceived and cognitively processed consciously or unconsciously by the analyst.
As building blocks in a specific insight, they are the properties of some specific data
that have been given a categorical mental representation and play an important role
in the creation of that insight.
The three levels of the framework are made up of basic, compound, and labeled
cognitive concepts. Basic concepts in space are distance, direction, and topology,
and in time distance and topology. These are the direct equivalences to the basic
relations. On the next level are the compound concepts. Contrary to the basic
concepts, they need more than two points in space or time to apply and they are,
in a way, derived from, and dividable into, basic cognitive concepts. These are
concepts such as intensity, size, shape, and distribution. The third level is called
labeled concepts. These are basic and compound concepts enriched with thematic
information or knowledge not inherent in the data. Figure
2
illustrates the hierar-
chies of the framework.
Insights
The dissected insights (labeled I-IV) are presented through a set of diagrams which
all have the same kind of vertical structure (Figs.
3
,
4
,
5
, and
6
). The basic relations
that are relevant in each insight are to be found in the bottom row, in boxes with a
dashed border. The cognitive constructs built from these basic relations are above
them, in boxes colored in three different shades (light for basic constructs, medium
for compound constructs, and dark for labeled constructs). The arrows depict part-
of relationships. Boxes with an unbroken border and white background represent
information originating from a reference frame. Each diagram presents the final
insight, and accompanying narrative, as plain text in a balloon next to the diagram.
The vertical structure reflects the top-down and bottom-up (goal-directed and
stimulus-driven) nature of attention and perception (Egeth and Yantis
1997
). The
basic relations are the stimulus of the process of creating the insight, while the
topmost cognitive constructs are closely related to goal-directed processes. The
insights are here presented in a bottom-up fashion. This approach is taken mainly to
give the descriptions a common structure, but does not indicate that the cognitive
processes behind the insights were only structured in a bottom-up manner.
As the concepts are cognitively processed, they are given a qualitative categor-
ical representation. These categorical representations are included in the diagrams
as underlined words, while the actual cognitive construct is indicated by bold
