Contribution of temporal contiguity to the spatial priming effect (original) (raw)

Locations nearby in space are typically experienced together in time: Spatial and temporal contiguity are confounded. In these experiments, subjects learned a map under controlled temporal order. In Experiment 1, one condition allowed the natural confound between space and time. Another condition did not; spatially near and far locations were temporally distant. A spatial priming effect was found in the former but not the latter condition. In Experiment 2, two groups learned a map in an unconfounded condition. For one group, temporal proximity in the learning order was held constant and distant, as in Experiment 1. For the other group, temporal proximity was held constant and close. Neither group showed a spatial priming effect. Experiment 3 replicated the unconfounded acquisition of Experiment 1, but tested for temporal priming, which was found. These results are difficult to reconcile with any theory of map representation that has metric properties that emerge independent of the temporal conditions of acquisition. A brief version of Experiment 1 was presented at the 30th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Atlanta, November, 1989. We thank Tim McNamara for his helpful comments throughout the conduct of this research, for giving us access to his map material, and for his comments on earlier drafts. We also thank anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft, and Jacquelyn Joseph and Stacey Donegan for their help in conducting the research.