@inproceedings{f8d91fc213804f32a373797d675631bd,
title = "Ontology and geographic objects: An empirical study of cognitive categorization",
abstract = "Cognitive categories in the geographic realm manifest certain special features as contrasted with categories for objects at surveyable scales. We argue that these features reflect specific ontological characteristics of geographic objects. This paper presents hypotheses as to the nature of the features mentioned, reviews previous empirical work on geographic categories, and presents the results of pilot experiments that used English-speaking subjects to test our hypotheses. Our experiments show geographic categories to be similar to their non-geographic counterparts in the ways in which they generate instances of different relative frequencies at different levels. Other tests, however, provide preliminary evidence for the existence of important differences in subjects{\textquoteright} categorizations of geographic and non-geographic objects, and suggest further experimental work especially with regard to the role in cognitive categorization of different types of object-boundaries at different scales.",
keywords = "Geographic categories, Geographic information systems, Geographic ontology, GIS, Human-subjects testing, Mereotopology, Prototypes, Spatial cognition",
author = "Mark, \{David M.\} and Barry Smith and Barbara Tversky",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1999.; International Conference on Spatial Information Theory, COSIT 1999 ; Conference date: 25-08-1999 Through 29-08-1999",
year = "1999",
doi = "10.1007/3-540-48384-5\_19",
language = "English",
isbn = "3540663657",
series = "Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)",
publisher = "Springer Verlag",
pages = "283--298",
editor = "Mark, \{David M.\} and Christian Freksa",
booktitle = "Spatial Information Theory",
address = "Germany",
}