*** Call for Contributions *** Workshop Spatial Cognition in Architectural Design: Anticipating User Behavior, Layout Legibility, and Route Instructions in the Planning Process www.sfbtr8.uni-bremen.de/SCAD in conjunction with international Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT'07) Melbourne, Australia, 19 September 2007 organizers Thomas Barkowsky (University of Bremen, Germany) Zafer Bilda (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) Christoph Hoelscher (University of Freiburg, Germany) Georg Vrachliotis (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) advisory board Ellen Do (Georgia Tech, USA) Christian Freksa (University of Bremen, Germany) John Gero (University of Sydney, Australia) Gabriela Goldschmidt (Technion, Israel) Barbara Tversky (Stanford University, USA) workshop description Architects make inferences about the spaces that they are not in. They can infer how multi storey buildings look like by inspecting separate 2D layouts of the floors. They can mentally synthesize separate spaces that make up a building design, and they can create alternative designs by revising the spaces and how these spaces may come together. Apart from these inferences, architects may also anticipate how residents and visitors of a building will behave in the spaces. They may design a building in such a way that people's ability to understand the spatial layout of this building is influenced (in a positive or negative way). For instance, the legibility of the spatial environment may influence the way in which routes between locations in the building are conceptualized, mentally processed, and communicated. These issues as well can inform and change the architect's spatial inferences and decisions in the architectural design process. When we study how architects work, think and design, we observe that they use multiple external cognitive tools to make spatial inferences. However, we cannot directly observe what internal resources they use or how they make these inferences using their internal spatial cognition facilities. There is anecdotal evidence that an architect is not limited to the periods of using external cognition to be engaged in spatial inferences. S/he also can be solving a spatial problem while, for instance, driving or having a shower. Therefore there is recently more emphasis on the efforts to understand internal cognition of designing. From a behavioral perspective, spatial cognition in the process of architectural designing concerns constructing and interpreting spatial information internally and externally using layouts, diagrams, symbols, gestures, models, and various forms of digital media. To study how architects are engaged in these activities we distinguish between internally induced / mental inferences and externally induced inferences. Mental inferences may refer to two kinds of environments: the space around the body (i.e. visible and tangible environments) and the space the body navigates in (i.e. the environment too large to be seen at a glance). An architect’s inferences require switching between both mental space types; a mental space where his body navigates in and between spatial components of a building and a mental space defining the global layout of the building (i.e. how it relates to the site and surroundings). Questions to be considered in this workshop include, but are not restricted to: • How do architects switch between the designer's and the users' perspectives during the design process? • What types of (internal and external) knowledge representations and processes do they make use of? • What are suitable computational tools for dealing with the spatial complexity of the diverse spatial perspectives and requirements? • What means are there to anticipate the way future users of the building will conceive of the building layout? • Regarding complex built environments, how can the aspect of conceptualizing and communicating route knowledge be integrated in the design process? • How do spatial / architectural and mental complexity related to each other with respect to building layouts? What are the limits both in the design process and the real experience of the resulting building complex? call for contributions Authors are invited to submit a contribution of 4 to 6 pages as basis for discussions during the workshop (pdf file in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science format, see www.springer.com/lncs). Please send your contribution to barkowsky@sfbtr8.uni-bremen.de. Accepted contributions will be made available on the workshop web site unless their authors instruct us otherwise. important dates 30 April 2007 submission of workshop contributions 15 June 2007 notification of acceptance 07 July 2007 final versions of workshop contributions 19 Sept 2007 workshop ==================================== _____________________________________ ECEM2007: CALL FOR PAPERS _____________________________________ The 14th European Conference on Eye Movements, ECEM2007, will take place from Monday, August 20th (9:00), to Thursday, August 23rd (13:00), in Potsdam, Germany. There will be a welcome reception on Sunday evening, August 19th. ECEM2007 covers all aspects of the oculomotor system and its relation to perceptual and cognitive processes, including applications and measuring techniques. The website of the conference, http:// www.ecem2007.org, is now operational and provides information about the conference. It also provides information about hotel reservation which should be done by the participants in direct contact with the hotels. We advise early hotel reservation. Registration and abstract submission will start on March 15th, 2007. The format of the conference will follow the format of the last conference in the ECEM series with oral talks and poster presentations in any area related to eye movements grouped into thematic sessions. Among the scientific conference highlights are: A plenary symposium in honour of John M. Findlay (University of Durham, UK). Invited lectures by Gerry Altmann (University of York, UK), Michael E. Goldberg (Columbia University, USA), Hans-Otto Karnath (University of Tuebingen, Germany), Susana Martinez-Conde (Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, USA), Keith Rayner (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA). Symposia will cover diverse topics including "Natural scence perception", "Eye movements in reading", "Mathematical modeling", "Eye tracking and event-related potentials", "A modern view of the pursuit system", "The anti-saccade task", "Visual search and scanpath", "Binocularity", "Evaluation in patients with brain damage", "Usability research". Abstracts for oral talks and poster presentations must be submitted before April 30, 2007. Notification of acceptance will be before May 30th, 2007. Before abstract submission, participants must register and pay the conference fee. The registration fee will be 150 EUR for delegates and 130 EUR for predocs. As of August 1st, the conference fee will be 200 EUR (180 EUR for predocs). The conference fee includes lunches, refreshment breaks, shuttle bus service from selected hotels, and the Barbeque Party on Tuesday evening, August 21st. Looking forward to seeing you in Potsdam, Reinhold Kliegl and Ralf Engbert --------------------------------------------- This message comes to you from the organizers of 14th European Conference on Eye Movements ============================================= Workshop on Analogies: Integrating Multiple Cognitive Abilities (AnICA07) in Nashville, Tennesse, August 1st 2007, held in conjunction with CogSci 2007 (Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society) Workshop Theme Analogical reasoning is a highly sophisticated cognitive process where two domains are compared and analyzed for common patterns. It could be the missing link for the understanding of cognitive abilities in natural complex systems. Researchers who attempt to use analogies for modeling of cognitive abilities are considered as a special target group of the workshop. The workshop addresses the potential of analogies concerning the following topics: • learning and abstraction, • memory, • reasoning, • context and adaptation, • human-level intelligence, • large-scale cognitive systems. Therefore the workshop is aimed to gather researchers who are working in the field of analogical reasoning and focus on analogy as an integrating basis for human cognition. Keynote Speakers: Boicho Kokinov, New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria Keith Holyoak, University of California, USA Ken Forbus, Northwestern University, USA Call for Papers Anybody with an interest in the questions raised above is invited to submit a position paper as basis for discussions during the workshop. Extended abstracts of approximately 2000 words should be sent by email to anica07@uni-osnabrueck.de. Accepted papers will be published online in the "Publication Series of the Institute of Cognitive Science" (PICS, ISSN 1610-5389), a scientific series from the Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrueck, unless the authors instruct us otherwise. Authors will be notified whether their position papers have been selected for an additional short-presentation during the workshop. Authors are invited to submit a full paper of their workshop submission to a post-workshop review process, leading to a journal special issue on future directions for analogical reasoning research. Organizers Angela Schwering, Ulf Krumnack, Kai-Uwe Kühnberger, Helmar Gust Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück Important Dates Submission 22th May 2007 Notification 08st June 2007 Camera Ready 18th June 2007 Workshop Website http://www.cogsci.uos.de/~anica07/ -------------------------------------------------- Gesellschaft für Kognitionswissenschaft Schriftführer: Prof. Dr. Manfred Thüring Webmaster: Nikolaus Rötting e-Mail: sf@gk-ev.de Web: http://www.gk-ev.de --------------------------------------------------