Qualitative representations (QRs) concern the representations that people use to understand continuous aspects of the world. On one hand, QRs have been used in the literature to bridge the sensorysemantic gap towards solving the symbol grounding problem in autonomous systems (AS). On the other hand, QRs and image schemas have a common basis since both model embodied sensory-motor interactions and can be combined for deconstructing blends and find meaning. Finally, some qualitative reasoning models based on perceptual ability tests (e.g. paper-folding) may inspire new image schemas, for example, by AS learning the patterns of sensory-motor interactions that deconstruct the situation steps to resolve the tests.