Geographic Categories: An Ontological Investigation

本研究的结果将有助于我们理解地理对象和相关的认知范畴。这将通过发展一个正式的本体论来实现，而本体论又将以使用人类受试者的严格的跨语言实证研究为基础。初步研究表明，地理对象具有重要的本体特征，与桌面尺度下遇到的对象不同，这些特征对于分类来说是突出的。到目前为止，关于认知范畴性质的证据主要是基于对类似于人体及其部分的实体的分类研究-小动物和植物，人工制品和工具等。本项目是第一个将这种调查系统地扩展到地理对象领域的项目。因此，它有可能有助于我们理解人类的认知分类一般，以及在地理领域的认知的具体特征。将用几种语言和几个区域进行平行研究，以便所产生的本体论将是多种语言的，该项目将有助于地理信息系统的发展，特别是空间数据的转移和地理软件和数据的语义互用性。目前大多数地理信息系统和空间数据基础设施都是基于地理对象（实体）的，地理对象及其类别的性质的改进理论将提高作为地理数据关键部分的特征编码方案的有效性。研究的多语言方面将有助于国际地理信息交流，并提高环境，社会，军事和商业领域多国项目的有效性。这项研究至少在以下几个方面具有实际意义：（1）它可以帮助我们了解不同人群如何交换或未能交换地理信息。(2)它可以支持知识交换标准的发展，为具有稳定的类别系统和形式上严格的基础结构的空间数据库提供基础。(3)它可以为地理信息系统提供默认特征，其方式可能有助于非专家更广泛地使用地理信息系统。

The results of this study will contribute to our understanding of geographic objects and associated cognitive categories. This will be achieved through the development of a formal ontology, which in turn will be based on rigorous, cross-linguistic empirical research using human subjects. Preliminary studies have indicated that geographic objects have important ontological features distinct from those of objects encountered at table-top scales, and that these features are salient for purposes of categorization. Evidence regarding the nature of cognitive categories has up to now been based primarily on studies of categorization of entities at scales similar to the human body and its parts--small animals and plants, artifacts and tools, etc.. The present project is the first to extend inquiries of this sort in systematic fashion to the domain of geographic objects. It thus has the potential to contribute to our understanding of human cognitive categorization in general, as well as to specific features of cognition in the geographic realm. Parallel studies will be conducted in several languages and regions, so that the resulting ontology will be multilingual.The project will contribute to the development of geographic information systems (GIS), especially to spatial data transfer and semantic interoperability of geographic software and data. Most current GISs, and spatial data infrastructures, are based on geographic objects (entities), and an improved theory of the nature of geographic objects and their categories will improve the effectiveness of feature coding schemes that are a key part of geographic data. The multilingual aspects of the research will contribute to international geographic information exchange, and to the effectiveness of multinational projects in environmental, social, military, and commercial domains. The proposed research can be of practical importance in at least the following ways: (1) It can help us to understand how different groups of people exchange, or fail to exchange, geographic information. (2) It can support the development of knowledge-interchange standards by providing the basis for spatial databases with stable category systems and formally rigorous underlying structure. (3) It can provide default characteristics for geographic information systems (GIS) in ways that may contribute to their broader usability by non-experts.