=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2455/paper8
|storemode=property
|title=The Use of the Word "Through" in an Indoor Environment
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2455/paper8.pdf
|volume=Vol-2455
|authors=Cristina Bahm
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/cosit/Bahm19
}}
==The Use of the Word "Through" in an Indoor Environment==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2455/paper8.pdf
The Use of the Word "Through" in an Indoor
Environment
Cristina Robles Bahm
Department of Information Systems Technology, La Roche University, USA
cristina.bahm@laroche.edu
Abstract
The goal of this preliminary work is to begin to explore the use of the preposition "through" by
providing a reflection on its relationship to a specific indoor environment. A user study was conducted
where participants gave wayfinding descriptions at the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History
[10]. These descriptions were then analyzed with a focus on the use of the preposition "through" and
how it corresponds to the physical environment. Three types of relationships emerged that appeared
to show different associations between the preposition "through" and the physical environment in
terms of regions [6] [5] and wayfinding choremes [4]. These groups were: "Through" a neighboring
region, "Through" a point of passage, and "Through" instead of "Beside" or "Across." More work needs
to be done in this area, particularly in the "Through" instead of "Beside" or "Across" relationship
which appears to be quite complex. This reflection hopes to lead to future work that solidifies the
relationship between the preposition "through" and how we cognitively conceptualize the indoor
spaces it describes [13].
2012 ACM Subject Classification General and reference → General literature; Human-centered
computing
Keywords and phrases spatial cognition, spatial language, indoor environments
Category workshop paper
1 Introduction
The connection between how a person speaks about a space and their cognitive understanding
of it has been established [6] [2] [5] [3] [9] [13]. Of these works, the focus on prepositions as
words of importance in spatial cognition are highlighted in [6] and [5] [7] [8]. In addition
to prepositions, the study of wayfinding choremes [4] and spatial predicates [7] [8] has also
provided a connection between our understanding of a space and the space itself. The
focused examination of one preposition can be a worthwhile pursuit as shown in [14] where
researchers performed a detailed examination of the preposition "at." Taking these past works
into account, the purpose of this work is to further explore the connection between language,
cognition, and the actual environment by beginning to reflect on the use of the preposition
"through" in one particular indoor environment.
One of the reasons why it is important to study the connection between language and
its relationship with our conceptualization of a spatial environment [13] is that it can help
to inform the design of computational models of space as well as the usability of spatial
information systems [11] [12]. In this study, the word "through" was chosen because it
appeared to show three different conceptualizations of space in different areas of a particular
indoor environment. While still preliminary, reflecting on the use of the word "through"
is a worthwhile conversation that could lead to a further understanding of the connection
between language and how we conceptualize an indoor space in information systems.
A user study was conducted that examined the use of the word "through" in wayfinding
descriptions and its connection to one particular building. It appears that for the word
"through" there are, mainly, three groups of relationships between the preposition "through"
and the physical space:
Copyright © 2019 for this paper by its authors.
81
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
In Proceedings Speaking of Location 2019: Communicating about Space, Regensburg, Germany, September2019.
Editors: K. Stock, C.B. Jones and T. Tenbrink (eds.);
Published at http://ceur-ws.org
82 "Through" indoors
"Through" a neighboring region
"Through" a point of passage
"Through" instead of "beside" or "across"
Although there are many definitions, the definition of the word "through" that will be
used in this work is, "—...as a function word to indicate movement into at one side or point
and out at another and especially the opposite side of" [1]. This paper begins to look at these
three groupings within this particular indoor space and how that is related to the language
used and the conceptualization of that space [13].
2 Methodology
Since this project is an extension of a previous work [10] it is important to discuss how
the data was originally collected. In the original work, a user study was conducted at
the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Total square
footage for the museums is approximately 45,900 square meters. The attendance per year
is approximately 330,000 visitors of all ages. The participants for the study were 10 men
and 10 women ranging in age from 19 to 77 years. At the time of the study they had been
employed at the museums an average of 31.7 months. Participants were sitting in a small
windowless room in a private area of the museum that was closed to the public.
After consent was attained, each participant was asked to give 11 wayfinding descriptions
from 17 origin and destination locations throughout the museums. They were instructed
to give the wayfinding descriptions, “as if they are giving directions to a patron who is not
familiar with the environment.” Wayfinding descriptions were given in sketch map or verbal
form, counterbalanced among participants. Participants did not have access to museum maps
during the study. For the purposes of this work, the focus will be on the 154 verbal wayfinding
descriptions collected. Each participant was videotaped and wayfinding descriptions were
transcribed. From here, each transcription was analyzed by examining the prepositions in
the wayfinding description. For the purpose of this work, only the wayfinding descriptions
that contained the word "through" were further analyzed. Details and results of this analysis
are described in the next section.
3 Analysis and Results
In total, 97 of the 154 wayfinding descriptions contained at least one use of the preposi-
tion "through." These 97 wayfinding descriptions were further analyzed by examining the
areas participants were sending people "through". For example, one wayfinding description
contained the verbalization "making a right through the portal entry," so in this case, "the
portal entry" was counted and noted. Figure 1 shows the distribution of the number of
counts for each area, with most areas being mentioned once or twice. It should be made
clear that some data cleaning was performed. For example, "dinosaurs" "dinosaur hall" and
"dinosaur exhibition" were all combined into one section. It is clear from the environment,
the wayfinding description, as well as the sketch maps from the study that these are all the
same area. Any areas that were ambiguous were kept separate.
Since this is a preliminary work, the rest of the analysis focused only on the top five
areas where the wayfinding description went "through." The total number of uses of the word
"through" for each of these areas is shown in Table 1. This means that Dinosaurs in Their
Time (DITT) was the area of the museum said the most after the word "through". After
C.R. Bahm 83
Figure 1 The distribution of the counts of the areas that follow the word "through." Most areas
are mentioned only once or twice.
that, Doors (of any type), the Hall of Geology, and Bird Hall and PaleoLab were mentioned
the most with Bird Hall and PaleoLab tying with ten mentions each.
The analysis of the top five areas began by comparing the use of the word "through" in the
wayfinding description, the area mentioned, and the actual environment. As in previous work
[7] [8] [4] [13], the focus of the analysis was on figuring out how participants conceptualized
these regions of space through their use of the word "through." Figure 2 shows a map of
the first floor of the environment, an area where all three types of conceptualizations were
represented.
To begin, each of the top five areas from Table 1 were broken down into regions with each
named room or area of the museum being a region as shown in Figure 3. Places where one
could pass from one region to another were circled in purple. The described path was also
shown on the visualization as a purple dotted line. Figure 3 shows the breakdown from the
verbalizations, "... through the dinosaurs up to the second floor" as well as "..wind around
through dinosaurs in their time.." and "..up the stairs cut through the dinosaurs..."
This type of breakdown was done for each description that mentioned going "through"
one of the top five areas in Table 1. When this was finished, it was clear three types of
conceptualizations were present: "Through" a Neighboring Region, "Through" a Point of
Passage, and "Through" versus "Beside" or "Across." These results are described more below.
3.1 "Through" a Neighboring Region
As shown in Table 1, the Dinosaurs in Their Time (DITT) exhibit was mentioned the most
as somewhere to go "through" in participant’s wayfinding descriptions. The Hall of Geology
and Bird Hall were third and fourth respectively. When looking at the map in Figure 2, as
well as the broken down map in Figure 3, it becomes clear that one of the reasons why DITT
is the most mentioned area after the word "through" may be because it takes up the entire
first floor.
Table 1 The top five locations that participants were verbalizing after the word "through".
Location Count
DITT 36
Doors (of any type) 28
Hall of Geology 19
Bird Hall 10
Paleolab 10
84 "Through" indoors
Figure 2 The first floor map of the museum. Dinosaurs in Their Time (DITT) is shown on the
top right where the dinosaur fossil is. As you can see from here, it is impossible to cross the museum
without going "through" this area.
C.R. Bahm 85
Figure 3 The area Dinosaurs in Their Time shown as a neighboring region that a participant
must enter in order to get from region one to region two. Purple circles show the entrances with the
dotted purple line being the path participants gave.
In fact, it would be impossible to reach the other side of the first floor (from region 1
to region 2 or vice versa) without going "through" DITT as shown in Figure 3. Similarly,
when examining the map, the Hall of Geology takes up the entire area in that space. It
would be impossible to get through this region without passing through the Hall of Geology.
Bird Hall, which was the fourth most mentioned area after the preposition "through," has a
similar placement in the actual environment, you cannot get to the other side of the museum
without going "through" this area.
When thinking in terms of regions [6] and our conceptualization of space through language
[13], it would appear that, for these three areas of the museum the word "through" is used
because it is between the region you are in and the region you want to get to. In terms of
wayfinding choremes [4], it serves as a neighboring region both to the region you are currently
in as well as to the region you are trying to get to next. Being a region that is between these
areas means that you must go "through" it to continue.
In summary, it would appear that there is a similar relationship between the preposition
"through" and the areas DITT, the Hall of Geology, and Bird Hall. When participants are
sending people "through" this region of space, they mean that these areas serve as regions
that one must go "through" in order to get to another region on the other side.
86 "Through" indoors
Figure 4 A zoomed in view of where PaleoLab is in the museum. From here, you can clearly see
that one cannot enter PaleoLab.
3.2 "Through" a Point of Passage
The second most popular area mentioned after the word "through" in Table 1 can be thought
of as not an area at all, but rather an object. Doors (of any type) were mentioned as necessary
to go "through" in wayfinding descriptions. It is important to note here that, for simplicity,
all doors were aggregated into one group. In this case, the door appeared to be a way to
enter a neighboring region. In terms of wayfinding choremes [4], this appears to be explained
by thinking of "the doors" as a point of passage allowing access to the neighboring region.
In summary, there appears to be a relationship between the use of the preposition
"through" and Doors (of any type). One explanation can be found in a classification from
wayfinding choremes [4] where the door is serving as a point of passage from one region to
the neighboring region.
3.3 "Through" versus "Beside" or "Across"??
It is easy to understand why participants would give wayfinding descriptions that go "through"
a neighboring region or "through" a point of passage, but what becomes an interesting
reflection point is shown by examining the PaleoLab area of the museum. Figure 4 shows a
zoomed in version of this part of the map. When looking at the map of the environment it
becomes clear that, in reality, one cannot enter PaleoLab. In fact, PaleoLab is an observation
area where visitors to the museum can watch Paleontologists work on restoring a Mastodon,
it is not an area they can go "through" at all. Another feature of the space to notice is that
the Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems is across from the PaleoLab. Why not say to go
through the area between PaleoLab and the Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems? or Across
the room after Geology? Another curious point is that participants did not mention going
"through" the Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems at all. Figure 5 shows the relationship
C.R. Bahm 87
Figure 5 A view of the PaleoLab and Hillman Hall of Gems and Minerals with regions identified.
Purple circles show the entrance and exit of the area and the path that descriptions said to take.
Something to note is that green circles show the entrances and exit of the Hillman Hall of Minerals
and Gems
between these two areas of the museum in terms of their regions.
In summary, the relationship between the preposition "through" and PaleoLab shows
a more complicated conceptualization of space that should be further explored. Why is
PaleoLab, an area one cannot actually go "through," always being described as something
one can go "through?" Why not across? or beside? Why is the Hillman Hall of Gems and
Minerals left out completely?
4 Discussion and Future Work
One possible explanation in the case of the PaleoLab, may be that PaleoLab and the entrance
to the Hall of Minerals and Gems is contained in its own area, and when participants say go
"through" PaleoLab, they mean go "through" the unnamed room and pass the PaleoLab. This
could be a possible explanation since the definition from [1] allows the word "through" to be,
"–used as a function word to indicate movement into at one side or point and out at another
and especially the opposite side of." However, we never enter the PaleoLab itself. Along
this line of thinking, the question then becomes what is the relationship between PaleoLab
and the area next to it? If we are talking about going "through" the PaleoLab why does
the conceptualization of the space communicated with this word not match what is possible
in the actual environment? In this case, the idea that wayfinding is an action in motion
becomes important [5] [13] and is something that future work may want to explore further.
Another possibility is that the area has been conceptualized as PaleoLab because it is on
the left of the map and the map is in English. Perhaps when two areas are across from each
other the one on the left becomes the conceptualized space? What is the explanation for
why participants chose to call the area PaleoLab and not the Hall of Gems and Minerals?
Perhaps, combining the exploration of the idea of the PaleoLab and the work done in [7]
could potentially yield results. Maybe the reason that PaleoLab was chosen was a matter of
scale? What does scale look like when we’re talking about the conceptualization of an indoor
environment? Perhaps the Hillman Hall of Gems and Minerals wasn’t mentioned as going
"through" because one can actually go through this area of the museum. Maybe when we’re
thinking about areas of indoor environments and how they relate to each other we think in
terms of some type of scale?
Future work may also focus on a more thorough analysis of the rest of the data in the
study. This study focused on a small subset of data from the original work. Only descriptions
88 "Through" indoors
that used the word "through" were analyzed, the original study collected a much larger set of
verbal descriptions as well as sketch map descriptions. Perhaps in comparing the sketch map
and verbal descriptions we can gain more insight into the use of the word "through" and the
way that we conceptualize spatial structures.
Another area of study could potentially by in the inconsistency in the use of the word
"through" in this data set as a whole. When looking at the distribution of the areas that
participants were instructing people to go "through" in Figure 1 it becomes clear that the
majority of the areas were only mentioned once or twice. This means that, in general, there
were very few descriptions where every one of the 11 participants said to go "through" a
specific area. Future work may want to examine why other words were chosen to conceptualize
the space? Is the calibration of these terms different when we’re talking about indoor space?
[8]
Lastly, more work lies in the application of the results presented in this work. One area
that could greatly benefit from the future work based on this reflection is the area of Natural
Language Processing. These insights could potentially be made into something like [11]
where computational models are bridged with what we know about how people think about
their space. Fully understanding how language conveys our conceptualization of space is well
studied beginning with Talmy’s seminal work [13] (citation is a new edition), but how we
can apply these concepts in today’s world of voice controlled technology is another area of
great potential. In addition to NLP, the improvement of spatial information systems that
are focused on indoor environments such as [12] is another space that could be improved
with more understanding of the conceptualization of indoor space. Being able to provided
insight into bridging the gap between language, cognition, the actual environment, and the
tools that we use to find our way in these environments would make these tools more salient
and usable.
5 Conclusion
In conclusion, the purpose of this work is to further explore the connection between language,
cognition, and the actual environment by beginning to reflect on the use of the preposition
"through" in one particular indoor environment. This preliminary reflection presented three
possible relationships between the preposition "through" in wayfinding descriptions and the
actual environment in this study. The first is "Through" a Neighboring Region which means
that the word "through" is used because the region lies in the way of the region you are in
and the one are trying to get to. The second use of the word "through" was seen when it was
paired with a door. In this case, the door served as a Point of Passage from one region to
the neighboring region.
However, an unclear relationship emerged between the preposition "through" and the
physical environment when studying the PaleoLab. It would appear that there is some sort
of relationship between PaleoLab and the physical space it occupies. Participants often used
the preposition "through" to describe a route one can’t actually go through. The relationship
between PaleoLab, the physical environment, and the preposition "through" is a puzzling
one that deserves more study.
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