Perceptions of Qualitative Spatial Arrangements of Three Objects

Abstract

Cognitive grounding of formal models of qualitative spatial relations is important to bridge between spatial data and human perceptions of spatial arrangements. Here, we report on an experimental verification of the cognitive alignment of the recently proposed Ray Intersection Model (RIM) capturing qualitative relationships between three spatial objects, and human perceptions of spatial arrangements through a grouping task. Further, we explore arrangements with an object positioned "between" two other objects. We show that RIM has sufficient expressive power and aligns well with human perceptions of ternary spatial relationships.