Constructing Semantically Scalable Cognitive Spaces

Abstract

This paper describes a technique for creating generalizable depictions of cognitive spaces from natural language documents, and presents a Web-based system that uses this procedure to visualize structure in geographic discourse. We implement a concept abstraction routine that leverages a lexical ontology to infer the semantics of discussion terms at increasing levels of generalization. A Web discussion medium that uses the Delphi method to guide geographic discourse serves as the framework from which concept structures are elicited. Delphi discussants explore these structures using two Web-enabled visualization schemes: Self-Organizing Maps and concept graphs. These visualization tools rely on a set of concept similarity measures tailored to conceptual information at multiple levels of abstraction. The cognitive spaces produced using this system can reveal key themes in a domain, and can help guide the creation of domain ontologies. We apply these tools to explore concept structures in the field of human-environment interaction.