Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!hwcs!jack From: jack@cs.hw.ac.uk (Jack Campin) Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: spatial reference in natural language Message-ID: <1557@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> Date: 1 Dec 87 20:14:46 GMT References: <6818@sunybcs.UUCP> Reply-To: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) Organization: PISA Project, Glesga Yoonie Lines: 20 Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: [ignore the above email address and use my signature] There is one kind of spatial language you want to avoid AT ALL COSTS in anything that will be interacting with car drivers (or people controlling other fast and dangerous machines) - "left" and "right". I can't remember the exact source for this, but it has been shown that it is very much harder for people to map these words onto specific spatial directions than to react to a pointing finger or equivalent. (this is certainly true for me - if I'm navigating for someone driving fast through town, I can't give accurate directions verbally; I have to point). I believe there is a great deal of variation in people's ability to do this. -jack -- ARPA: jack%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk JANET:jack@uk.ac.glasgow.cs USENET: ...mcvax!ukc!cs.glasgow.ac.uk!jack Mail: Jack Campin, Computing Science Department, University of Glasgow, 17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland (041 339 8855 x 6045)