Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance Episode 1 Part 7 pot

Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance (pre-publication on-line version) 107

• Understanding the effects of scale

• Competently mentally transforming perceptions and representations among different geometric

dimensions (e.g., mentally expanding 1-dimensional traverses or profiles to 2-D or 3-D

configurations similar to that involved in geological mapping, or reducing 3-D or 4-D static or

dynamic observations to 2-D formats for purposes of simplification or generalization (as when

creating graphs, maps, or images)

• Comprehending different frames of reference for location, distance estimation, determining

density gradients, calculating direction and orientation, and other referencing purposes (e.g.,

defining coordinates, vectors, rasters, grids, and topologies)

• Being capable of distinguishing spatial associations among point, line, area, and surface

distributions or configurations

• Exercising the ability to perform spatial classification (e.g., regionalization)

• Discerning patterns in processes of change or spread (e.g., recognizing patterns in observations of

the spatial spread of AIDS or city growth over time)

• Revealing the presence of spatial and nonspatial hierarchies

Each of the above involves sensing of phenomena and cognitive processing to unpack embedded

detail. It should also be obvious that these perceptual and cognitive processes have their equivalents

in information technology (IT), particularly with respect to creating, managing and analyzing datasets.

While we are creating multiple terabytes of data each day from satellites, from LIght Detection And

Ranging (LIDAR), from cameras, and from visualizations, our technology for dealing with this data

— particularly for dynamic updating and realtime analysis — lags somewhat, even in the most

advanced systems currently invented. Even in the case of the most efficient data collector and

analyzer ever developed, the human mind, there is still a need to simplify, summarize, generalize, and

represent information to make it legible. The activities required to undertake this knowledge

acquisition process are called education, and the knowledge accumulation resulting from this exposure

is called learning. Thus, if NBIC can empower spatial thinking and reasoning, it will promote learning

and knowledge accumulation among individuals and societies, and the results will have impact the

entire spatial domain. (Note, there is a National Research Council committee on spatial thinking

whose report is due at the end of 2002.)

To summarize, spatial thinking is an important part of the process of acquiring knowledge. In

particular, spatial knowledge, defined as the product of spatial thinking and reasoning (i.e., defined as

cognitive processes) can be characterized as follows:

• Spatial thinking and reasoning do not require perfect information because of the closure power of

cognitive processes such as imaging, imagining, interpolating, generalizing, perceptual closure,

gestalt integration, and learning

• Spatial metaphors are being used — particularly in IT related database development and operation

— but it is uncertain whether they may or may not be in congruence with equivalent cognitive

functioning.

• Spatial thinking has become an important component of IT. IT has focused on visualization as a

dominant theme in information representation but has paid less attention to other sensory

modalities for its input and output architectures; more emphasis needs to be given to sound, touch,

108 B. Expanding Human Cognition and Communication

smell, gaze, gesture, emotion, etc. (i.e., changing emphasis from visualizations to

perceptualizations).

New Learning Domains

One specific way that NBIC developments may promote learning is by enhancement of virtual

systems. In geography and other spatial sciences, learning about places other than one‘s immediate

environment is achieved by accessing secondary information, as in books, maps, images, and tables.

In the future, one may conceive of the possibility that all place knowledge could be learned by primary

experience in immersive virtual environments. In fact, within 20 years, much geospatial knowledge

could be taught in immersive virtual environments (VE) labs. This will require

• solution of the space sickness or motion sickness problems sometimes associated with immersion

in VE

• quick and immediate access to huge volumes of data — as in terabytes of data on a chip — so that

suitably real environments can be created

• adoption of the educational practice of “learning by doing“

• major new development of hardware and virtual reality language (VRL) software

• conviction of teachers that use of VE labs would be a natural consequence of the educational

premise that humans learn to think and reason best in the spatial domain by directly experiencing

environments.

• Investigation of which types of learning experiences are best facilitated by use of VE.

Using More Nonvisual Methods

Because of the absence of geography in many school curricula in the United States, many people have

severely restricted access to (and understanding of) representations of the environment (for example,

maps and images) and more abstract concepts (including spatial concepts of hierarchy and association

or adjacency displayed by maps or data represented only in tables and graphs) that are fundamental in

education and daily life. Representations of the geographic world (maps, charts, models, graphs,

images, tables, and pictures) have the potential to provide a rich array of information about the modern

world. Learning from spatialized representations provides insights into layout, association, adjacency,

and other characteristics that are not provided by other learning modes. But, electronic spatial

representations (maps and images) are not accessible to many groups who lack sight, training, or

experience with computerized visualizations, thus contributing to an ever-widening digital divide.

With new technological developments, such as the evolution from textual interfaces to graphically

based Windows environments, and the increasing tendencies for website information to be restricted to

those who can access visualizations and images, many people are being frustrated in their attempts to

access necessary information — even that relevant to daily life, such as weather forecasts.

When viewing representations of the geographic world, such as a map on a computer screen, sight

provides a gestalt-like view of information, allowing the perception of the synoptic whole and almost

simultaneously recognizing and integrating its constituent parts. However, interacting with a natural

environment is in fact a multi-modal experience. Humans engage nearly all of their sensory modalities

when traversing space. Jacobson, Rice, Golledge and Hegarty (2002) summarize recent literature

relating to non-visual interfaces. They suggest that, in order to attend to some of this multisensory

experience and to provide access to information for individuals with restricted senses, several research

threads can be identified for exploring the presentation of information multimodally. For example,