Spatial Representation with Aspect Maps

Abstract

Maps are spatial media used for representing spatial, or more specifically: geographic knowledge. From the viewpoint of spatial cognition and knowledge representation, geographic maps are worthwhile to investigate for at least two reasons. First, maps are a common means of depicting geographic knowledge which have proven their usefulness over centuries. From the viewpoint of representation theory it is of interest to investigate how geographic knowledge is represented in maps and how it can be extracted. Second, and related thereto, from a cognitive point of view, investigating the structure of maps can provide a promising access to the way humans perceive, represent, and interact with their spatial environment. characteristics of maps: (1) maps represent some aspects pictorially; (2) maps represent some aspects symbolically; and (3) maps represent only selected aspects of the underlying geographic space... to solve a given task, a cognitive system uses both internal and external representations.