Conceptual Neighborhood Blindness – On the Cognitive Adequacy of Gradual Topological Changes

Abstract. In this paper we examine whether the formalization of changes in the spatial relations of two moving regions provides an adequate characteriza-tion of the conceptualization of perceived motion events of those regions. The changes we consider are topological transformations that result in gradual topo-logical changes. Using a series of experiments, we investigate the conceptual-ization and perception of conceptual neighborhoods and the role of conceptual neighborhoods in characterizing motion events. Our experiments employ a group-ing paradigm and a custom made tool for presenting animated icons. The ex-periments are coupled with follow-up tasks to elaborate on the relation between conceptualizations—as revealed by the groupings—and different modalities of externalization such as language and graphics. The results of the experiments are relevant to the more general topic of change blindness, an important phenomenon in psychology.