A virtual test bed in support of cognitively-aware geomatics technologies

Abstract

Current efforts concerned with research at the interface between cognitive science and geographic information science or geomatics is beginning to shift towards a larger focus on how the theory developed may be applied to concrete applications. In order to provide some quality control on the development and evaluation of cognitively-aware geomatics systems and technologies, this paper proposes to consolidate current theory into a virtual test bed. The virtual test bed requires an appropriate and adequate categorization of spatial cognitive behaviors, itself a non-trivial task. In addition, the test bed must be sufficiently general to evaluate different kinds of cognitively aware systems. In this paper, three characteristics of such systems are discussed – their plausibility, their compatibility and their scope. The relationships between these concepts and the Turing test are also explored. A tentative categorization scheme, based on information processing needs, is then proposed as an initial framework for developing a virtual test bed. Several design issues are also presented, and the paper finishes with the presentation of two case studies that illustrate how the test bed might be used.