Formalizing conceptual spaces Export

@incollection{raubal04formalizing, abstract = {Semantics constitutes the highest level on the communication ladder. The mutual understanding of terms makes it possible that information systems can communicate with people and among each other. Two opposing approaches to explaining the meaning of terms exist: a realist and a cognitive one. Many efforts for solving the so-called problem of semantic interoperability in the area of Information Science are based on realist semantics, which claims that meaning is in the world. In this paper we argue for a cognitive approach to semantic interoperability, which is based on the assumption that meanings are in the heads of people. This allows us to account for the fact that different people have different conceptualizations of the world and therefore require different answers and presentations of answers to their spatio-temporal questions. The paper presents a formal approach for representing G\"{a}rdenfors' idea of conceptual spaces—sets of quality dimensions within a geometrical structure. It complements the mathematical notion of a vector space with a standardization method from statistics to formally define conceptual vector spaces. Such spaces allow for the measurement of semantic distances between instances of concepts and also for the assignment of weights to their quality dimensions in order to represent different contexts. Mappings, such as transformations and projections, between such spaces facilitate knowledge sharing and therefore support cognitive semantic interoperability. A case study from the geospatial domain—wayfinding services with landmarks—demonstrates the usefulness and plausibility of the approach.}, author = {Raubal, Martin}, booktitle = {Formal Ontology in Information Systems, Proceedings of the Third International Conference (FOIS 2004)}, citeulike-article-id = {1179005}, editor = {Varzi, A. C. and Vieu, L.}, keywords = {conceptual-spaces, math}, pages = {153--164}, posted-at = {2007-03-21 11:50:24}, priority = {2}, title = {Formalizing conceptual spaces}, year = {2004} }

TY - CHAP ID - raubal04formalizing L3 - citeulike-article-id:1179005 N2 - Semantics constitutes the highest level on the communication ladder. The mutual understanding of terms makes it possible that information systems can communicate with people and among each other. Two opposing approaches to explaining the meaning of terms exist: a realist and a cognitive one. Many efforts for solving the so-called problem of semantic interoperability in the area of Information Science are based on realist semantics, which claims that meaning is in the world. In this paper we argue for a cognitive approach to semantic interoperability, which is based on the assumption that meanings are in the heads of people. This allows us to account for the fact that different people have different conceptualizations of the world and therefore require different answers and presentations of answers to their spatio-temporal questions. The paper presents a formal approach for representing Gärdenfors’ idea of conceptual spaces—sets of quality dimensions within a geometrical structure. It complements the mathematical notion of a vector space with a standardization method from statistics to formally define conceptual vector spaces. Such spaces allow for the measurement of semantic distances between instances of concepts and also for the assignment of weights to their quality dimensions in order to represent different contexts. Mappings, such as transformations and projections, between such spaces facilitate knowledge sharing and therefore support cognitive semantic interoperability. A case study from the geospatial domain—wayfinding services with landmarks—demonstrates the usefulness and plausibility of the approach. EP - 164 TI - Formalizing conceptual spaces T2 - Formal Ontology in Information Systems, Proceedings of the Third International Conference (FOIS 2004) SP - 153 KW - conceptual-spaces KW - math AU - Raubal, Martin A2 - Varzi, AC A2 - Vieu, L PY - 2004/// ER -