How do we use distance representation based on spatial terms?

摘要

Understanding spatial terms involves computing the dis-tance between objects. For example, when we judge theacceptability of the description "a cat is near the table," thedistance between the cat and the table is important. In thiscase, the acceptable distance between them should bewithin a distance defined as "near" in the scene. It issupposed that each spatial term defines a typical repre-sentational distance and that we use a spatial term as a unitof measurement. When we see a spatial relationship anduse a spatial term, we understand that the term describes adistance relationship. However, how we actually use suchterms is unclear. We hypothesized that the distance rep-resentation communicated by spatial terms would have thesame cognitive characteristics as would distance repre-sentations based on our visual distance perception.