An approach for grounding ontologies in raw data using foundational ontology

Many information systems employ domain ontologies to make explicit the semantic of the descriptions manipulated by them. However, the relation between the system and the real world is always mediated by the user: the representations within the system do not keep any direct connection to the real world, besides those inside the user' mind. This scenario describes the so called symbol grounding problem in information systems, which refers to the general issue of connecting symbols in a symbol system to their analog manifestations in the real world. Symbol grounding strategies keep the relation between the external world and symbols within the system, providing improved support for description and procedures for automatic interpretation. In this paper, we present a grounding framework which incorporates notions of formal ontology in its core. The ontological characterization of the visual grounding relations should provide better criteria for deciding which domain entities can be grounded and how they can be grounded. Finally, we demonstrate the application of these ideas in an interpretation system in the Geology domain.