Referring expressions in location based services: The case of the 'opposite' relation

Abstract

Mobile devices and location based services enable digital and real worlds to be integrated within our daily lives. The handling of natural language dialogue raises several research challenges, including the ability to direct the user's attention to a particular feature in the field of view through the use of suitable descriptions. To mimic natural language these referring expressions should use attributes which include factors of the building's appearance, and descriptions of its location with reference to the observer or other known buildings in view. This research focuses on one particular positional case used in describing features in a field of view, that of the "opposite" spatial relation, and discusses how this referring expression may be generated by modelling the view from the observer's location to the surrounding features. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.