ERIC Number: EJ730219
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004-Dec
Pages: 18
Abstractor: Author
Reference Count: 0
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0010-0277
Orientational Manoeuvres in the Dark: Dissociating Allocentric and Egocentric Influences on Spatial Memory
Burgess, Neil; Spiers, Hugo J.; Paleologou, Eleni
Cognition, v94 n2 p149-166 Dec 2004
Subjects in a darkroom saw an array of five phosphorescent objects on a circular table and, after a short delay, indicated which object had been moved. During the delay the subject, the table or a phosphorescent landmark external to the array was moved (a rotation about the centre of the table) either alone or together. The subject then had to indicate which one of the five objects had been moved. A fully factorial design was used to detect the use of three types of representations of object location: (i) visual snapshots; (ii) egocentric representations updated by self-motion; and (iii) representations relative to the external cue. Improved performance was seen whenever the test array was oriented consistently with any of these stored representations. The influence of representations (i) and (ii) replicates previous work. The influence of representation (iii) is a novel finding which implies that allocentric representations play a role in spatial memory, even over short distances and times. The effect of the external cue was greater when initially experienced as stable. Females out-performed males except when the array was consistent with self-motion but not visual snapshots. These results enable a simple egocentric model of spatial memory to be extended to address large-scale navigation, including the effects of allocentric knowledge, landmark stability and gender.
Descriptors: Spatial Ability, Memory, Cues, Motion, Psychological Patterns, Influences, Cognitive Processes
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: N/A

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