Spatial Cognition 2010: Call for Contributions

1) Environmental Modeling: Using Space Syntax in Spatial Cognition Research
Drew Dara-Abrams, University of California,Santa Barbara, drew@geog.ucsb.edu
Christoph Hoelscher, Universitaet Freiburg, hoelsch@cognition.uni-freiburg.de
Ruth Conroy-Dalton, University College London, r.conroy-dalton@ucl.ac.uk
Alasdair Turner, University College London, a.turner@ucl.ac.uk

Morning: tutorial
Afternoon: workshop

Spatial cognition researchers have exacting methods for studying how people navigate, learn, and remember buildings, cities, and other large environments. Architects and planners have similarly careful computational methods for modeling the physical form of these environments. With this combination tutorial and workshop, we hope to further the pairing of behavioral methods and environmental models in spatial cognition research. The morning tutorial session will include a hands-on lesson in using environmental modeling techniques known as space syntax. No prior experience is necessary for the tutorial.
For the afternoon workshop session, researchers and practitioners are invited to submit papers (short or long format) and posters (with an
abstract) for presentation. Those who wish to attend without presenting are invited to submit a position paper. Topics to be considered include:

• Using environmental models (axial maps, segment maps, isovists, visibility graph analysis, agents, etc.) to address theoretical questions concerning spatial knowledge, spatial learning, locomotion, wayfinding, and other topics in spatial cognition.
• Methodological issues of pairing environmental models and behavioral research methods.
• Constructing environmental models that capture psychologically relevant features.
• Relating environmental properties, such as visibility, accessibility, and intelligibility, to cognitive processes and behavior.

More details at: http://geocog.geog.ucsb.edu/envmod2010/

2) Modeling of Multi‐level Indoor Environments: Wayfinding Support and Empirical Studies
Christoph Stahl, Saarland University, stahl@cs.uni-saarland.de
Stefan Muenzer, Saarland University, s.muenzer@mx.uni-saarland.de

Afternoon

In this half-day tutorial, we introduce the YAMAMOTO modeling toolkit that has been developed for the rapid modeling and visualization of multi-level buildings in 3-D, including the furnishing and landmark objects. YAMAMOTO provides a route finding component that automatically generates visual route descriptions to support indoor navigation and wayfinding tasks in complex buildings. The tool can be of interest for researchers, architects, and teachers concerned with indoor wayfinding, visualization, and spatial learning. We will show how to apply the tool for the modeling of real or fictive buildings and demonstrate how to explore such a building model from different perspectives and viewpoints in desktop virtual environments. We will explain how to use the toolkit’s dedicated features to create visual route descriptions for wayfinding. We further report on how we have utilized YAMAMOTO models for empirical studies on wayfinding and spatial learning.

More details at: http://w5.cs.uni-sb.de/~stahl/MMIE-Tutorial/index.html