Thora Tenbrink
Cognitive
Discourse Analysis: Analyzing Spatial Thought as Represented in Language
Abstract
Cognitive
Discourse Analysis as a method is specifically designed for analyzing
cognitive processes as represented in language. The method has been
applied in recent years both to gain a better understanding of mental
representations of scenes and events, and to investigate thought
processes involved in problem solving tasks. The specific novelty of
the method lies in the identification of those linguistic structures
and patterns that are specifically informative with respect to
conceptual - rather than communicative - phenomena. Particularly in the
area of problem solving, the triangulation with other types of
evidence, such as behavioral data, is essential. In my talk I will
focus on the spatial domain and outline the main features of the
methodological approach, illustrated by a range of findings gained in
cooperative interdisciplinary studies.
The studies were conducted during three years of cooperation with Jan
Wiener in the scope of our joint project "Wayfinding strategies in
behavior and language", funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. I will
briefly sketch two prominent application areas of this tandem endeavor.
First, our research on cognitive strategies in the Traveling Salesperson Problem
highlighted the complex interplay of cognitive processes involved in
finding the shortest path to a predefined set of spatial goals. I will
outline how linguistic analysis supported the interpretation of
behavioral data in this area. Second, a joint study with Jan Wiener and
Christoph Hölscher on route
planning in familiar environments showed that routes are planned and described differently depending on
the situation. While actual
route navigation (without planning ahead) is predominantly direction-based
and characterized by incremental perception-based optimization
processes, in-advance route descriptions rely more on salient graph-based
structures, and they are affected by concerns of communicability.
Related
readings
Hölscher,
Christoph, Thora
Tenbrink, and Jan Wiener (subm.) Would you follow your own route
description?
Tenbrink,
Thora. 2008. The
verbalization of cognitive processes: Thinking-aloud data and
retrospective
reports. In Wiebke Ramm & Cathrine Fabricius-Hansen (eds.), Linearisation and Segmentation in Discourse.
Multidisciplinary Approaches to Discourse 2008 (MAD 08), Feb 20-23
2008,
Lysebu, Oslo. Oslo: Dept. of Literature, Area Studies and Europ.
Languages,
Univ. of Oslo, pp. 125-135.
Tenbrink, Thora. 2010. CODA:
Kognitive Diskursanalyse. In: Esther
Ruigendijk, Thomas Stolz, und Jürgen Trabant (Hrsg.), Linguistik
im Nordwesten: Beiträge zum 1. Nordwestdeutschen
Linguistischen Kolloquium. Bochum: Brockmeyer, S.
117-133.
Tenbrink,
Thora and Linn
Gralla. 2009. Accessing complex cognitive processes via linguistic
protocol
analysis. In Ute Schmid,
Marco Ragni, Markus Knauff (Eds.): Proceedings
of the KI
2009 Workshop Complex
Cognition, Paderborn, Germany, September 15, 2009. Bamberger
Beiträge zur
Wirtschaftsinformatik und Angewandten
Informatik Nr. 82, Bamberg
University, October 2009, pp. 1-12. ISSN
0937-3349.
Tenbrink,
Thora and Jan Wiener. 2007. Wayfinding
Strategies in Behavior and Language: A
Symmetric and Interdisciplinary Approach to Cognitive Processes. In
Thomas
Barkowsky, Markus Knauff, Gérard Ligozat, and Dan Montello
(eds.), Spatial Cognition V: Reasoning, Action,
Interaction. Berlin:
Springer, pp. 401–420.
Tenbrink,
Thora and Jan
Wiener. 2009. The verbalization of multiple strategies in a variant of
the
traveling salesperson problem. Cognitive
Processing 10:2,
143-161.
Wiener,
Jan, Thora Tenbrink, Jakob Henschel, and Christoph Hölscher. 2008.
Situated
and
Prospective Path Planning: Route Choice in an Urban
Environment. In B. C. Love, K. McRae, & V. M. Sloutsky (eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of
the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 851-856).
Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Wiener, Jan and Thora
Tenbrink. 2008. Traveling salesman problem: The human case. Künstliche
Intelligenz: KI und Kognition, 1/08, 18-22.