Qualitative Spatial Arrangements and Natural Object Categories as a Link Between 3D-Perception and Speech

The visionary goal of an easy to use service robot implies intuitive styles of interaction between humans and robots. Such natural interaction can only be achieved if means are found to bridge the gap between the forms of object perception and spatial knowledge maintained by such robots, and the forms of language, used by humans, to communicate such knowledge. Part of bridging this gap, is allowing user and robot to establish joint reference on objects in the environment - without forcing the user to use unnatural means for object reference.