Approximating Cognitive Representations Using Space

Abstract In everyday life, people intuitively use space to make meaningful distinctions between objects. In this paper, we demonstrate how geometric, spatial representations can capture a wide variety of cognitive phenomena. To conduct these experiments, we developed GRIS (Generating Representations In Space), an advancement of prior spatial-arrangement paradigms. In GRIS experiments, participants manipulate a set of objects (text, audio, images) and place them on canvases. Following an introduction to the paradigm, we present three studies which demonstrate how experiments in the GRIS paradigm can both a) reveal nuanced insights about human and computational representations, and b) capture low-level behavioral data of spatial representations as they are constructed.