Spatial–temporal reasoning is an area of
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
that draws from the fields of
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
,
cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...
, and
cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of human mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning.
Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, whi ...
. The theoretic goal—on the cognitive side—involves representing and reasoning spatial-temporal knowledge in mind. The applied goal—on the computing side—involves developing high-level control systems of automata for
navigating and understanding time and space.
Influence from cognitive psychology
A convergent result in cognitive psychology is that the connection relation is the first spatial relation that human babies acquire, followed by understanding orientation relations and distance relations. Internal relations among the three kinds of spatial relations can be computationally and systematically explained within the theory of cognitive prism as follows:
# the connection relation is primitive;
# an orientation relation is a distance comparison relation: you being in front of me can be interpreted as you are nearer to my front side than my other sides;
# a distance relation is a connection relation using a third object: you being one meter away from me can be interpreted as a one-meter-long object connected with you and me simultaneously.
Fragmentary representations of temporal calculi
Without addressing internal relations among spatial relations, AI researchers contributed many fragmentary representations. Examples of temporal calculi include
Allen's interval algebra, and Vilain's & Kautz's
point algebra. The most prominent spatial calculi are
mereotopological calculi,
Frank's
cardinal direction calculus, Freksa's double cross calculus, Egenhofer and Franzosa's
4- and 9-intersection calculi, Ligozat's
flip-flop calculus, various
region connection calculi (RCC), and the Oriented Point Relation Algebra.
Recently, spatio-temporal calculi have been designed that combine spatial and temporal information. For example, the
spatiotemporal constraint calculus (STCC) by Gerevini and Nebel combines Allen's interval algebra with RCC-8. Moreover, the
qualitative trajectory calculus (QTC) allows for reasoning about moving objects.
Quantitative abstraction
An emphasis in the literature has been on
qualitative spatial-temporal reasoning which is based on qualitative abstractions of temporal and spatial aspects of the common-sense background knowledge on which our human perspective of physical reality is based. Methodologically, qualitative
constraint calculi restrict the vocabulary of rich mathematical theories dealing with temporal or spatial entities such that specific aspects of these theories can be treated within
decidable fragments with simple qualitative (non-
metric
Metric or metrical may refer to:
Measuring
* Metric system, an internationally adopted decimal system of measurement
* An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement
Mathematics
...
) languages.
Contrary to mathematical or physical theories about space and time, qualitative constraint calculi allow for rather inexpensive reasoning about entities located in space and time. For this reason, the limited expressiveness of qualitative representation formalism calculi is a benefit if such reasoning tasks need to be integrated in applications. For example, some of these calculi may be implemented for handling spatial
GIS queries efficiently and some may be used for navigating, and communicating with, a mobile
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions Automation, automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, co ...
.
Relation algebra
Most of these calculi can be formalized as abstract
relation algebra
In mathematics and abstract algebra, a relation algebra is a residuated Boolean algebra expanded with an involution called converse, a unary operation. The motivating example of a relation algebra is the algebra 2''X'' 2 of all binary re ...
s, such that reasoning can be carried out at a
symbolic level. For computing solutions of a
constraint network, the
path-consistency algorithm is an important tool.
Software
GQR constraint network solver for calculi like RCC-5, RCC-8, Allen's interval algebra, point algebra, cardinal direction calculus, etc.
qualreasis a
Python framework for qualitative reasoning over networks of relation algebras, such as RCC-8, Allen's interval algebra, and Allen's algebra integrated with Time Points and situated in either Left- or Right-Branching Time.
See also
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Cerebral cortex
The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals. It is the largest site of Neuron, neural integration in the central nervous system, and plays ...
*
Commonsense reasoning
*
Diagrammatic reasoning
Diagrammatic reasoning is reasoning by means of visual depiction, representations. The study of ''diagrammatic reasoning'' is about the understanding of concepts and ideas, visualized with the use of diagrams and imagery instead of by natural lan ...
*
Spatial ability
Spatial ability or visuo-spatial ability is the capacity to understand, reason, and remember the visual and spatial relations among objects or space.
Visual-spatial abilities are used for everyday use from navigation, understanding or fixing equ ...
*
Temporal logic
In logic, temporal logic is any system of rules and symbolism for representing, and reasoning about, propositions qualified in terms of time (for example, "I am ''always'' hungry", "I will ''eventually'' be hungry", or "I will be hungry ''until'' I ...
*
Visual thinking
Visual thinking, also called visual or spatial learning or picture thinking, is the phenomenon of thinking through visual processing. Visual thinking has been described as seeing words as a series of pictures. It is common in approximately 60â ...
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Spatial-temporal reasoning
Cognitive science
Knowledge representation
Educational psychology
Logical calculi
Reasoning
Time in life
Spatial cognition
Space and time