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ERIC Number: EJ1163730
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Dec
Pages: 5
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0278-7393
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
The Cause of Category-Based Distortions in Spatial Memory: A Distribution Analysis
Sampaio, Cristina; Wang, Ranxiao Frances
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, v43 n12 p1988-1992 Dec 2017
Recall of remembered locations reliably reflects a compromise between a target's true position and its region's prototypical position. The effect is quite robust, and a standard interpretation for these data is that the metric and categorical codings blend in a Bayesian combinatory fashion. However, there has been no direct experimental evidence that the 2 codings are actually combined. That is, at least 2 mechanisms can produce biased mean responses: (a) people may in fact take a weighted average of the metric and categorical representations, but (b) these 2 codings may instead compete for response, each winning with a certain probability. The present work investigated these 2 hypotheses for the cause of category-based distortions using a new distribution analysis. Participants viewed a target within a blank circle and reproduced its location after a short delay. The error data for individual participants were fit with a kernel curve, which provides a distribution without the assumption of normality. Almost all individual distributions displayed a clear biased main peak, indicating a weighted average between the representations, not an alteration between the 2 representations.
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Washington
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A