EAGER: Spatial Awareness Through Sapient Interfaces

空间意识是成功定位和寻路的关键。 虽然在熟悉的地形中导航使我们能够在没有指导的情况下到达目的地，但不熟悉或仅部分熟悉的环境需要使用外部空间信息，这些信息通常以口头或地图的形式呈现。 如果我们向一个知识渊博的当地人询问方向，传递给我们的信息可能会指出沿着的一些地标，或者告诉我们街道名称中存在的结构（例如，它们是有序的）。 长期以来，人们一直在利用识别显著物体的能力，并利用这些物体来理解空间并指导他们的行动。 但是，基于移动的GPS的导航系统通常忽略了我们的空间知识的构建和应用的能力。 这种设备的日益普及导致了对各个位置-动作对（例如，在这里左转）来引导我们一步一步;这有一个缺点，即不能提供对空间环境的全面了解，例如，在紧急情况下，这可能是有害的。 随着空间信息现在以更广泛的格式提供，具有更好的通用性和更高的保真度，现在是时候重新思考如何从创建空间意识的角度为方向和寻路提供空间信息了，通过PI称为智能接口。 在这个项目中，PI将通过借鉴不同领域的理论来探索实现这一目标的第一步，这些理论有助于我们对空间认知的理解。 要解决的中心研究问题是：如何空间意识的支持下，专注于认知人体工程学的组织和空间信息的呈现的映射系统？ PI将寻求对有助于空间意识发展的因素的系统理解（例如，对象显著性），并确定原则和推导出移动的导航地图系统的设计指南，该系统侧重于空间信息的认知人机工程学组织和呈现。 研究的一个关键部分将是对空间分析的正式方法进行交叉验证;项目成果将包括以正式空间分析措施为基础的空间意识的理论基础。对基于GPS的导航系统的日益依赖对我们的空间思维能力产生了负面影响，因为当前的设备以不能建立对空间关系的理解的方式提供信息。 该项目将重新思考这些系统提供空间信息的方式，以促进而不是阻碍空间思维，从而避免后代对空间的无知。

Spatial awareness is the key to successful orientation and wayfinding. While navigation through familiar terrain allows us the luxury of reaching our destination without guidance, unfamiliar or only partially familiar environments require the use of external spatial information, which is most often presented verbally or in the form of maps. If we were to ask a knowledgeable local person for directions the information imparted to us might point out some landmarks along the way or inform us about a structuring present in the street names (e.g., that they are alphabetically ordered). People have long exploited the capability to recognize salient objects, and to use those objects to understand a space and guide their actions. But mobile GPS-based navigation systems typically overlook our abilities in spatial knowledge construction and application. The growing popularity of such devices has resulted in an increasing dependence on individual location-action pairs (e.g., turn left here) to guide us step by step; this has the drawback of not affording an overall understanding of the spatial environment, which in emergency situations, for example, may prove harmful. With spatial information now available in a much wider array of formats, with better currency and increased fidelity, it is time to rethink how to provide spatial information for orientation and wayfinding from the perspective of creating spatial awareness, via what the PI refers to as sapient interfaces. In this project the PI will explore first steps toward this goal, by drawing on theories from different fields that contribute to our understanding of the cognition of spaces. The central research question to be addressed is: How can spatial awareness be supported by a mapping system that focuses on the cognitively ergonomic organization and presentation of spatial information? The PI will seek a systematic understanding of the factors contributing to the development of spatial awareness (e.g., object saliency), and to identify principles and derive design guidelines for mobile navigation mapping systems that focus on the cognitively ergonomic organization and presentation of spatial information. A critical part of the research will be the cross-validation of formal approaches to spatial analysis; project outcomes will include a theoretical foundation of spatial awareness that is grounded in formal spatial analysis measures.Broader Impacts: The growing dependence on GPS-based navigation systems has negative impacts on our ability to think spatially, because current devices provide information in a manner that fails to build an understanding of spatial relations. This project will rethink the way in which spatial information is provided by such systems, so as to foster rather than impede spatial thinking and to thereby avoid spatial illiteracy in coming generations.