Narayanan, N. H., Suwa, M. & Motoda, H. (1994). How things appear to work: Predicting behaviors from device diagrams. Proceedings of the 12th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI Press, pp. 1161-1167.

@InProceedings{NarayananSuwaMotoda1994,
  author = 	 {Narayanan, Hari N. and 
                  Suwa, M. and 
		  Motoda, H.},
  title = 	 {How things appear to work: Predicting behaviors from device diagrams},
  booktitle = 	 {Proceedings of the
12th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence},
  OPTcrossref =  {},
  OPTkey = 	 {},
  OPTpages = 	 {1161--1167},
  OPTyear = 	 {1994},
  OPTeditor = 	 {},
  OPTvolume = 	 {2},
  OPTnumber = 	 {},
  OPTseries = 	 {},
  OPTaddress = 	 {},
  OPTmonth = 	 {July},
  OPTorganization = {AAAI},
  OPTpublisher = {AAAI Press},
  OPTnote = 	 {},
  OPTannote = 	 {}
}

Author of the summary: Jim Davies, 2004, jim@jimdavies.org

Cite this paper for:

Uses visual and conceptual reasoning. Experiment: Ran 5 subjects in a protocol experiment. Findings are
1. the diagram facilitated memory cueing.
2. the diagram supported mental simulation which allowed the reasoner to predict effects of simulated behaviors. [1162]

The experiment inspired the cognitive model, which uses a diagram and domain-knowledge to predict the behavior of the diagrammed system. The visual representation contains "diagram frames" and array representations (like Glasow 1992). The array representation contains knowledge of what is contained in each pixel. The user provides higher-level descriptions of what these pixels represent. At present they are line segments and locations. [1164]

Visual reasoning:

• Diagram observation: spatial information from diagram frames and the array.
• Visual Inference: Inferences based solely on visual representations.
• Visual operations: move, rotate, copy, delete, as well as domain specifics such as "compress-spring."

This paper uses a combination of visual and non-visual knowledge to reason about a diagrammed situation. It is valuable because it shows when visual knowledge and reasoning are useful.

Summary author's notes:

• none