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Dynamic Problem Solving in Space

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Book cover Spatial Cognition XII (Spatial Cognition 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 12162))

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Abstract

The paper presents and illustrates the strong spatial cognition paradigm in the example of catching a flying ball by means of an angular control strategy. The strategy makes constructive use of structural geometric properties of 2- and 3-dimensional space in a way that is similar to strategies used by athletes and animals to catch flying objects. We contrast this strategy to predictive approaches employed in robotics: In these approaches, geometric properties are formally reconstructed from analytical domain knowledge which athletes and dogs do not require for catching balls or frisbees. A familiar spatial constellation of a shadow projection helps to understand the geometric principles which enable a constant angular control strategy. We illustrate the structural geometry of the approach by an interactive implementation in a game engine environment that permits observing and tracing the spatial dynamics. We show how the environment can “compute" for us and illustrate how this structural geometry can be used to solve spatial cognitive tasks.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Unity Version 2019.3: https://unity.com.

  2. 2.

    The repository can be accessed at: https://osf.io/ac386/?view_only=18c76765a7234c13a4310758d7dd8b89.

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Acknowledgement

We thank Matt Duckham and anonymous reviewers for valuable comments that helped us to refine our argumentation. We also thank Berthold Bäuml and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) for collaboration and for their detailed showcase of the robot Justin that is capable of catching flying balls.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bremen Spatial Cognition Center (BSCC), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Christian Freksa & Felix Kroll

  2. RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, 3000, Australia

    Maria Vasardani

Authors
  1. Christian Freksa
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  2. Maria Vasardani
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  3. Felix Kroll
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christian Freksa .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

    Jurǵis Šķilters

  2. Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Nora S. Newcombe

  3. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    David Uttal

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Freksa, C., Vasardani, M., Kroll, F. (2020). Dynamic Problem Solving in Space. In: Šķilters, J., Newcombe, N., Uttal, D. (eds) Spatial Cognition XII. Spatial Cognition 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12162. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57983-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57983-8_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-57982-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-57983-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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