Goal-specific influences on the representation of spatial perspective (original) (raw)
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British Journal of Psychology, 2013
The present research investigates the role of individual differences in preference for adopting extrinsic frame of reference (EFR) in ability to represent mentally spatial information learned through survey and route descriptions. A sample of 191 participants (100 females and 91 males) was categorized as four groups with high (H-EFR), medium-high (MH-EFR), medium-low (ML-EFR) and low (L-EFR) preference. The groups listened to two spatial descriptions in survey and route perspectives, subsequently performing true/false verification and map drawing tasks. They also performed a number of visuo-spatial, verbal and geographical pointing tasks. Results showed a general better performance of the H-EFR group and of malesin comparison with lower-ability counterparts and females respectivelyin spatial text recall tasks and in other spatial measures. Moreover, spatial ability interacts with text perspective: in verification test the H-EFR group outperformed the lower groups in survey and route inferential sentences and in map drawing the superiority of H-EFR group was shown with survey (but not with route) text. Overall, the results suggest that individuals with high preference for extrinsic frame of reference are able to manage environment information in both spatial perspectives even if they prefer to express it in survey format. That preference is specifically sustained by spatial abilities.
Individual differences in cognitive map accuracy: Investigating the role of landmark familiarity
Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 2019
Broad individual differences exist in the ability to create a cognitive map of a new environment. The current studies investigated whether familiarizing participants with to-be-learned target landmarks (Experiment 1) or target landmarks plus the order they would be encountered along routes (Experiment 2) before exploring the Silcton virtual environment would increase performance on tasks assaying spatial memory of Silcton. Participants in both experiments were randomly assigned to be pre-exposed either to information about target landmarks in Silcton or control landmarks on the university campus. In both experiments, participants explored Silcton via four prescribed routes and then performed a direction estimation task and a map building task based on memory for the locations of the target landmarks. In addition, participants completed the Spatial Orientation Test of perspective-taking. Pre-exposure to Silcton landmarks versus control landmarks did not affect scores on Silcton-based tasks in either experiment. Some sex differences in direction estimation were observed in Experiment 1 but not Experiment 2. While facilitating familiarity with landmarks did not improve cognitive map accuracy, both sex and perspective taking ability were found to contribute to individual differences in the ability to create a cognitive map. Public Significance Statement Individual differences in the ability to create a mental map of a novel environment have been demonstrated in the laboratory, but their origins are not well understood. It is possible that familiarizing individuals with the buildings and the routes in a new environment before they experience it may help them form a mental map. Such pretraining did not facilitate the accuracy of mental representations, and it seems likely that variation in spatial visualization abilities is a larger contributor to individual differences in mental map accuracy.
Spatial Cognition & Computation, 2005
Successful wayfinding requires accurate encoding of two types of information: landmarks and the spatial relations between them (e.g. landmark X is left/north of Y). Although both types of information are crucial to wayfinding, behavioral and neurological evidence suggest that they have different substrates. In this paper, we consider the nature of the difference by examining comprehension times of spatial information (i.e. route and survey descriptions) and landmark descriptions. In two studies, participants learned simple environments by reading descriptions from route or survey perspectives, half with a single perspective switch. On half of the switch trials, a landmark description was introduced just prior to the perspective switch. In the first study, landmarks were embellished with descriptions of visual details, while in the second study, landmarks were embellished with descriptions of historic or other factual information. The presence of landmark descriptions did not increase the comprehension time of either route or survey descriptions, suggesting that landmark descriptions are perspective-neutral. Furthermore, visual landmark descriptions speeded comprehension time when the perspective was switched, whereas factual landmark descriptions had no effect on perspective switching costs. Taken together, the findings support separate processes for landmark and spatial information in construction of spatial mental models, and point to the importance of visual details of landmarks in facilitating mental model construction.
Spatial memory and perspective taking
Memory & Cognition, 2004
Giving directions or describing an environment often requires assuming perspectives other than one's own. We employed a spatial perspective-taking task to investigate how describing familiar versus novel perspectives affects subsequent memory. One participant (the director) viewed a display of objects from a single perspective and described the display to another participant (the matcher) from a perspective that varied by 0º, 45º, 90º, 135º, or 180º from the viewing perspective. Following the description, we assessed the director's memory for the display, using judgments of relative direction, scene recognition, and map drawing. The participants imagined and recognized familiar views faster and/or more accurately than novel views. Moreover, different tasks showed different degrees of facilitation for the visually perceived and described views, suggesting multiple representations for different aspects of spatial memory. These findings emphasize the importance of understanding distinctions among spatial experiences and underscore differences in the tasks used to probe spatial memory.
Strategies of processing spatial information in survey and landmark-centred individuals
European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2001
This study investigated di V erences between individuals with survey and landmark-centred spatial representations in di V erent visuo-spatial tasks and in two way-nding tasks. The Mental Rotation Test (MRT; , and the Minnesota Paper Form Board Test (MPFB; were administered to two groups of high-survey and landmark-centred undergraduate students. The groups also performed two way-nding tasks where they were required to study the route they were going to take, in one case with a map and in the other with a verbal description. Di V erences between the two groups emerged; high-survey individuals performed the MRT better than the landmark-centred ones. In the way-nding task an interaction, instruction by group, was found, supporting the idea that the two groups are in uenced di V erently by the format (map or verbal description) of instructions. The landmark-centred group made fewer errors than the high-survey group with the verbal descriptions.
The prevalent use of GPS-based navigation systems impairs peoples' ability to orient themselves. This paper investigates whether wayfinding maps that accentuate different types of environmental features support peoples' spatial learning. A virtual-reality driving simulator was used to investigate spatial knowledge acquisition in assisted wayfinding tasks. Two main conditions of wayfinding maps were tested against a base condition: (i) highlighting local features, i.e., landmarks, along the route and at decision points; and (ii) highlighting structural features that provide global orientation. The results show that accentuating local features supports peoples' acquisition of route knowledge, whereas accentuating global features supports peoples' acquisition of survey knowledge. The results contribute to the general understanding of spatial knowledge acquisition in assisted wayfinding tasks. Future navigation systems could enhance spatial knowledge by providing visual navigation support incorporating not only landmarks but structural features in wayfinding maps.
Honors Thesis, National University of Singapore, 2011
Environmental representations have typically been categorized into procedural descriptions and survey knowledge. Based on recent findings about allocentric and egocentric encoding of spatial relations, we hypothesized that survey knowledge could be further classified into surveyallocentric and survey-egocentric representations (depending on which encoding the person uses). Our study examined the distinction in survey representations using map drawing task. The second goal was to examine how this distinction in environmental representations relates to individual differences in allocentric and egocentric spatial abilities, using spatial visualization and spatial orientation computerized tasks. The third goal was to explore how these environmental representations differ in landmark knowledge, using landmark recognition and landmark directional tasks. The map drawings were reliably classified into procedural, survey-allocentric, and survey-egocentric representations, based on the encoding of spatial relations. Individuals who drew survey-egocentric maps tended to perform more accurately and faster on egocentric spatial orientation task than those who drew procedural maps. Significant differences were found in accuracy and reaction times on landmark tasks between different types of landmarks: no-choice versus active, non-cultural versus cultural, permanent versus temporary, and scenes versus individual landmarks. There were no significant differences in landmark recognition and directional tasks between individuals with different environmental representations.
Variations in cognitive maps: Understanding individual differences in navigation
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2014
There are marked individual differences in how effectively people construct cognitive maps in both real world and virtual environment settings (e.g., Blajenkova, Motes, & Kozhevnikov, 2005; Chai & Jacobs, 2010;. However, these individual differences are poorly understood and difficult to assess except by self report. In this study, we studied spatial learning in a virtual environment (VE) consisting of several buildings arrayed along two disconnected routes and investigated how acquisition of spatial knowledge relates to self-reported sense of direction on the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction Scale (SBSOD) and psychometric measures of spatial ability. We also compared the pattern of results in the VE to findings from the real world environment on which the VE was modeled (Schinazi, Nardi, Newcombe, Shipley, & Epstein, in press). Results suggest that more accurate pointing between buildings on different routes correlates with self-reported navigation ability, validating the SBSOD. However, the SBSOD did not distinguish between participants who had more or less difficulty with pointing accurately between pairs of buildings on the same route. Comparing results from the VE to the real world revealed similar patterns of learning, despite higher overall accuracy in the real world. Thus, we confirm the existence of individual differences in the ability to construct a cognitive map of an environment, characterize these differences more completely than is so far possible with self-report, and introduce an objective behavioral measure of navigation ability that can be used as a research tool.
Exploring the Effects of Geographic Scale on Spatial Learning
Background: Investigating the relationship between the human body and its spatial environment is a critical component in understanding the process of acquiring spatial knowledge. However, few empirical evaluations have looked at how the visual accessibility of an environment affects spatial learning. To address this gap, this paper focuses on geographic scale, defined as the spatial extent visually accessible from a single viewpoint. We present two experiments in which we manipulated geographic scale using two perspectives, a ground level and an elevated view, in order to better understand the scale effect on spatial learning. Learning outcomes were measured using estimates of direction and self-reports of mental workload. Results: In contrast to our hypothesis, we found few differences in spatial learning when comparing different perspectives. However, our analysis of pointing errors shows a significant interaction effect between the scale and spatial ability: The elevated perspective reduced the differences in pointing errors between low and high spatial ability participants in contrast to when participants learned the environment at ground level alone. Bimodal pointing distributions indicate that participants made systematic errors, for example, forgetting turns or segments. Modeling these errors revealed a unified alternative representation of the environment and further suggests that low spatial ability participants benefited more from the elevated perspective in terms of spatial learning compared to high spatial ability participants. Conclusions: We conclude that an increased geographic scale, which was accessible through an elevated perspective in this study, can help bridge the performance gap in spatial learning between low and high spatial ability participants.
Orientation and Perspective Dependence in Route and Survey Learning
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2004
Three experiments investigated the role of egocentric orientation in subsequent memory for layouts learned via route (ground-level) and survey (aerial or overview) perspectives. Participants learned virtual environments from text descriptions (Experiment 1) or visual presentation (Experiments 1-3). In all experiments, scene recognition for route and survey images revealed a cost for switching perspective from study to test. In addition, recognition performance was facilitated when the test view matched the observer's learned orientation but only for the same-perspective recognition test. Experiment 3 demonstrated orientation dependence in judgments of relative direction, with a strong emphasis on initial heading. Together, these results suggest that establishing a reference system for representing spatial information is dependent on specific characteristics of the learning situation.