GMEOW Sensory Environment Module

• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/sensory-environment
• Tier: extension
• Group: extensions

What This Slice Covers

This slice owns 32 terms and contributes 9 mapping or projection rows. Use it when its terms match the native fact you want to preserve; use the linkage tables to see how those facts leave GMEOW for consumer vocabularies.

Dependencies

• gmeow:slices/kernel
• gmeow:slices/observations
• gmeow:slices/places
• gmeow:slices/temporal

Consumers

• Environmental sensing context for sensory observations.

Local Map

Examples

Measured Vs Perceived

• Source: slices/extensions/sensory-environment/examples/measured-vs-perceived.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:CoordinateMatrix, gmeow:Instant, gmeow:Person, gmeow:Place, gmeow:SensoryEnvironment, gmeow:SensoryPerception, gmeow:coordinateMatrixFrame, gmeow:environmentAtInstant, gmeow:environmentAtLocation, gmeow:hasMeasuredCondition
• External prefixes: xsd

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: measured ≠ perceived (, P11/P12). A gmeow:SensoryEnvironment
# at a location and instant carries TWO kinds of condition that GMEOW refuses to
# conflate: a gmeow:hasMeasuredCondition (a gmeow:CoordinateMatrix — instrument
# data, every value in an explicit reference frame) and a gmeow:hasPerceivedCondition
# (a gmeow:SensoryPerception — how an observer experienced it, per
# gmeow:perceptionModality). "23.5 °C on the grid" and "it felt warm" are
# different claims about the same room: one objective and framed, one subjective.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/sensory-environment/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd:   <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

ex:room a gmeow:Place ; gmeow:name "Tasting room"@en .

ex:noon a gmeow:Instant ;
    gmeow:instantValue    "2026-06-12T12:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    gmeow:inTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

# --- The environment: same room and instant, two kinds of condition.
ex:env a gmeow:SensoryEnvironment ;
    gmeow:environmentAtLocation  ex:room ;
    gmeow:environmentAtInstant   ex:noon ;
    gmeow:sensoryModality        gmeow:sensoryModalityThermal ;
    gmeow:hasMeasuredCondition   ex:thermalGrid ;
    gmeow:hasPerceivedCondition  ex:feltWarm .

# --- Objective: a grid of temperature readings, framed (P11).
ex:thermalGrid a gmeow:CoordinateMatrix ;
    gmeow:coordinateMatrixFrame gmeow:referenceFrameLocalGrid ;
    gmeow:matrixShape           "1" ;
    gmeow:matrixValue           "23.5" .

# --- Subjective: how it was experienced — the thermal modality, but a perception.
#     A SensoryPerception is a core Observation, so it records WHO perceived it
#     (vantage) and HOW (observationMethod) — the qualia are a standpoint's, not
#     a frame-free fact.
ex:taster a gmeow:Person ; gmeow:name "Visiting taster"@en .

ex:feltWarm a gmeow:SensoryPerception ;
    gmeow:perceptionModality gmeow:sensoryModalityThermal ;
    gmeow:vantage            ex:taster ;
    gmeow:observationMethod  gmeow:methodDirectObservation .

Terms

Classes

Properties

Individuals

Linkages

• Rows: 9
• Projection profiles: -
• External vocabularies: bfo, mls, sosa

Guide

Sensory Environment — ambient conditions, measured and felt

Slice: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/sensory-environment · tier: extension What a room is like at 3 p.m. — to the instruments, and to each person in it.

"The room is 22 °C" and "the room feels stuffy" are different kinds of claim, and this slice refuses to flatten them into one field. Ambient perceivable conditions at a Location×time are reified as a first-class SensoryEnvironment (not a property bag), so that everything said about it carries provenance, confidence, temporal scope, and standpoint. Measured conditions are CoordinateMatrix values in measurement reference frames — colourspace, audio spectrum, thermal, air-quality. Perceived conditions are standpoint-indexed values in MentalReferenceFrames: every perception is read in the perceiver's own frame (Principle 11 — frames are first-class and self-describing, and a mental frame requires a host; two hosts may map the same stimulus to different coordinates). The two facets are co-equal, with no privileged representation (Principle 9). Part of the the design Location-as-reference-frame design; the Principle-15 consumer is environmental sensing context for sensory observations — the sensory slice's stack gains its where-and-what-it-was-like setting here.

The environment and its facets

gmeow:SensoryEnvironment

The ensemble of physical properties perceivable at one location and time. Anchored by gmeow:environmentAtLocation (functional — one location is constitutive of identity) and scoped by gmeow:environmentAtInstant (point-like) or gmeow:environmentDuringInterval (spans) — pick one, never both for the same scope.

gmeow:hasMeasuredCondition

The objective facet: an instrument's reading as a CoordinateMatrix in a measurement frame. Non-functional by doctrine — multiple instruments produce competing measurements that coexist rather than collapse (Principle 9).

gmeow:hasPerceivedCondition

The subjective facet: a perceiver's SensoryPerception in a MentalReferenceFrame. Equally non-functional, and equally first-class — the felt temperature is not a degraded version of the measured one.

gmeow:sensoryModality

The channel(s) through which the environment is characterised — values from gmeow:SensoryModality, an open vocabulary (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, thermal, air quality). Non-functional: one space may be both thermally and acoustically characterised.

The measured side

gmeow:CoordinateMatrix

The generalisation of ScalarQuantity to vectors, matrices, and tensors: a serialised gmeow:matrixValue literal, a gmeow:matrixShape descriptor ("4×1", "256×1", "640×480×3"), a unit, a determinacy, and exactly one frame via gmeow:coordinateMatrixFrame. Used for colourspace tuples, audio spectra, thermal images, and compound air-quality readings. All matrix algebra — dot products, transforms, decompositions — lives in the solver layer (Principle 12).

gmeow:coordinateMatrixFrame

Functional sub-property of gmeow:hasReferenceFrame: a matrix is expressed in exactly one frame, and frame transformation is a computation, never an assertion. Being a sub-property means the frame-inheritance chain (isResultOf ∘ hasReferenceFrame) applies automatically. Seed measurement frames ship with the slice: CIE 1931 XYZ, CIE L*a*b*, and an audio-spectrum frame.

The perceived side

gmeow:MentalReferenceFrame

A ReferenceFrame whose realm is perceptual or psychological: thermal comfort (ASHRAE PMV/PPD), the Russell affective circumplex, Gärdenfors conceptual spaces, egocentric and allocentric cognitive maps, imagined spaces (memory palaces, dreams). Axiomatised to require a host (gmeow:isHostedBy someValuesFrom gmeow:Entity); the frame deactivates when its host ceases to exist. This is Principle 11 at full strength — subjective value spaces get the same first-class frame machinery as CIE XYZ.

gmeow:SensoryPerception

A StandpointClaim specialised to the sensory domain: vantage = perceiver, observedFeature = the environment (via gmeow:perceptionEnvironment, a sub-property of observedFeature), result = the perceived value, channel = gmeow:perceptionModality. Competing perceptions coexist without collapse (Principle 9); superseded ones are suppressed, never deleted (Principle 10).

Solver layer & status

Colourspace conversion, spectral analysis, comfort-model evaluation, and matrix parsing (shape-directed via matrixShape) are solver-layer concerns (Principle 12) — the graph states which frame a value is in; it never stores re-derived coordinates. The slice is flagged putative in its module header: alignments beyond the in-house frame facility (e.g. to SOSA observation context or W3C SSN-System) are deferred until the Location-as-reference-frame design settles. Depends on kernel, observations, places, and temporal.