Tutorials

We offer three tutorials aimed at an interdisciplinary audience (students, researchers) without topical background. Some curiosity about knowledge representation and reasoning will be useful. Join us if you are keen to learn more about using methods and tools for spatial reasoning and computational cognitive vision in research and development. Also relevant for educators wanting to learn about using such tools for their direct use in teaching activities.


  • IJCAI 2017

    Melbourne

  • COSIT 2017

    L'Aquila

  • ICMC 2017

    Osnabrück




TUTORIAL

Declarative Spatial Reasoning
Theory, Methods and Applications
MEHUL BHATT \ CARL SCHULTZ \ Przmyslaw Walega
University of Bremen \ Universit of Muenster \ University of Warsaw
IJCAI 2017 \  26th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence  \  MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA.  August 19-25 2017

Spatial thinking, conceptualisation, and the verbal and visual (e.g., gestural, iconic, diagrammatic) communication of commonsense as well as expert knowledge about the world -the space that we exist in- is one of the most important aspects of everyday human life. Philosophers, cognitive scientists, psychologists, linguists, psycholinguists, ontologists, information theorists, computer scientists, mathematicians, architects, and environmental psychologists have each investigated space through the perspective of the lenses afforded by their respective field of study.

This tutorial will present computational visuo-spatial representation and reasoning from the viewpoint of the research areas of artificial intelligence, commonsense reasoning, and spatial cognition and computation}. The key focus will be on declarative spatial reasoning: the ability to (declaratively) specify and solve real-world problems related to geometric (i.e., quantitative) and qualitative visuo-spatial representation and reasoning. The practical problems that we address and demonstrate in this context encompass both specialist and everyday commonsense reasoning instances identifiable in a range of cognitive technologies and \emph{spatial assistance systems} where spatio-linguistic conceptualisation & background knowledge focussed visuo-spatial cognition and computation are central.
www.spatial-reasoning.com



TUTORIAL

SPATIAL COGNITION IN THE WILD:
METHODS FOR LARGE-SCALE BEHAVIOURAL RESEARCH IN
VISUO-LOCOMOTIVE PERCEPTION

MEHUL BHATT \ CARL SCHULTZ \ JAKOB SUCHAN \ VASILIKI KONDYLI
University of Bremen \ University of Munster: The DesignSpace Group
COSIT 2017 \  13th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory  \  L'AQUILA, ITALY.  September 4-8 2017

The tutorial on Spatial Cognition in the Wild presents an interdisciplinary perspective on conducting evidence-based human behaviour research from the viewpoints of spatial cognition and computation, environmental psychology, and visual perception. The tutorial emphasises the semantic interpretation of multimodal behavioural data, and the (empirically-driven) synthesis of embodied interactive experiences in real world settings. Of special focus are: visual (e.g., perception, attention based on eye-tracking), visuo-locomotive (e.g., movement, indoor wayfinding), and visuo-auditory (e.g., moving images) cognitive experiences in the context of areas such as architecture & built environment design, narrative media design, product design, cognitive media studies (e.g., film, animation, immersive reality).
The technical focus of the tutorial is on demonstrating general computational methods, tools, and cognitive assistive technologies that can be used for multi-modal human behaviour studies in visual, visuo-locomotive, and visuo-auditory perception. Presented methods are rooted in foundational research in artificial intelligence, spatial informatics, and human-computer interaction. The tutorial utilises case-studies from large-scale experiments in domains such as evidence-based architecture design, communication and media studies, and cognitive film studies to demonstrate the application of the foundational practical methods and tools.

Select Case-Studies
  \   The New Parkland Hospital (Dallas)  \  Hospital del Trabajador (Santiago, Chile)  \  Minds and Movies 2017 (Bremen)   \  

Expected audience.
The tutorial will present the material using examples and tool demonstrations in the backdrop of select case-studies. We do not presuppose any specialised background or training; general curiosity about one or more of the topics will be sufficient. In so far as foundational AI and HCI methods are concerned, these will be presented conceptually without technical detail using working demonstrations. www



TUTORIAL

Computational Cognitive Vision for
Human-Behaviour Interpretation

JAKOB SUCHAN \ MEHUL BHATT
University of Bremen \ HCC Lab
ICMC 2017 \  International Conference on Multimodal Communication: Developing New Theories and Methods  \  OSNABRÜCK, GERMANY.  June 9-11 2017

This (invited) plenary tutorial focuses on application areas where the processing and semantic interpretation of (potentially large volumes of) highly dynamic visuo-spatial imagery is central: dynamic imagery & narrativity from the viewpoint of visual perception and embodiment research; embodied cognitive vision for robotics; commonsense scene understanding etc. In the backdrop of areas as diverse as (evidence-based) architecture design, cognitive film studies, cognitive robotics, eye-tracking, the tutorial will pursue a twofold objective encompassing applications and basic methods with a particular emphasis on the visual interpretation aspect of multimodality studies.
The tutorial will address AI researchers in knowledge representation, computer vision, developers of computational cognitive systems where processing of dynamic visuo-spatial imagery is involved, and educators wanting to learn about general tools for high-level logic based reasoning about image, video, point-clouds and using such tools in their teaching activities.
www