Representation and Processing of Knowledge about . . .

To solve tasks concerning distances along a route, between locations which cannot be perceived from a single vantage point, people and other cognitive agents must generate inferred route distances. Inferred route distances, and inferred distances in general, are a special kind of subjective distances: Inferred distances cannot be retrieved from memory, but have to be inferred from several pieces of knowledge about distances whicheachhave been perceived from a single vantage point. What is the information content of inferred route distances, and how are they inferred? In this context, an important question is in what sense they, like other central concepts of spatial cognition, are qualitative, and in what sense they are quantitative. To answer these questions, the present study relates dierent theories of subjective distances to one another, anditdevelops a computational model of inferred route distances. It thereby aims to integrate research from arti cial intelligence, in particular Qualitative Spatial Reasoning, and cognitive psychology