On the utilization of spatial structures for cognitively plausible and efficient reasoning

The authors present an approach to representing and processing qualitative orientation information which is motivated by cognitive considerations about the knowledge acquisition process. The approach to qualitative spatial reasoning is based on directional orientation information as available through perceptual processes. qualitative orientations in two-dimensional space are given by the relation between a point and a vector. A basic iconic notation for spatial orientation relations which exploits the spatial structure of the domain is presented, and a variety of ways in which these relations can be manipulated and combined for spatial reasoning is explored