Sensorimotor alignment effects in the learning environment and in novel environments.

Four experiments investigated the conditions contributing to sensorimotor alignment effects (i.e., the advantage for spatial judgments from imagined perspectives aligned with the body). Through virtual reality technology, participants learned object locations around a room (learning room) and made spatial judgments from imagined perspectives aligned or misaligned with their actual facing direction. Sensorimotor alignment effects were found when testing occurred in the learning room but not after walking 3 m into a neighboring (novel) room. Sensorimotor alignment effects returned after returning to the learning room or after providing participants with egocentric imagery instructions in the novel room. Additionally, visual and spatial similarities between the test and learning environments were independently sufficient to cause sensorimotor alignment effects. Memory alignment effects, independent from sensorimotor alignment effects, occurred in all testing conditions. Results are interpreted in the context of two-system spatial memory theories positing separate representations to account for sensorimotor and memory alignment effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young children's representation of spatial information acquired from maps.

The early development of the ability to acquire integrated knowledge of a space from a map was investigated in 130 children, 4 to 7 years of age. Experiment 1 demonstrated that all 6- and 7-year-olds and many 4- and 5-year-olds could learn the layout of a large playhouse composed of six adjoined rooms by memorizing a map. Children who learned the map before entering the playhouse more quickly learned a route through it than children who were not exposed to the map, and older children performed significantly better than younger children. In Experiment 2 preschoolers learned a map of a space that contained six spatially separated small rooms within one large room. Children could therefore view the entire configuration of smaller rooms as they traveled around the larger room. Preschoolers performed significantly better in Experiment 2 than in Experiment 1, and the majority of them performed perfectly or almost perfectly. Taken together, the findings help to clarify young children's map-reading abilities in several respects and suggest that preschoolers' abilities are more substantial than has been assumed or demonstrated previously. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changing predictors of map use in wayfinding.

Differential predictors of route map use in wayfinding by 48 48–63-month-olds vs 46 64–79-month-olds were tested. Predictors of map use should shift from landmark to array encoding, from mental rotation of 1 element to array rotation, and from direct perception of an array to recall. Landmark and array encoding and array rotation were measured by duplication of placements on an array when 2 arrays were aligned or 1 was rotated 180°. Matching a rotated letterlike form to a standard gauged single-element rotation; recall of landmark locations after their removal from an array indexed memory. Each rotation task and landmark placements predicted the younger children's map scores; array encoding, single-element rotation, and recall predicted older children's map errors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Connecting the dots: Children's use of a systematic figure to facilitate mapping and search.

Organizing locations into a systematic figure was predicted to facilitate children's use of spatial relations in a mapping task. In Study 1, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds used a map to find a sticker hidden under 1 of 27 locations. The search locations formed a systematic figure, the outline of a dog. Half of the children were shown that the locations formed a dog. Seeing the dog pattern facilitated the performance of 5-year-olds but not that of the younger children. Study 2 indicated that children had to see a systematic figure to gain an advantage; adding lines to an unsystematic figure did not convey an advantage. Study 3 indicated that a verbal label alone could not convey an advantage. Study 4 revealed that seeing the dog pattern could also facilitate performance when the map was rotated relative to the represented space. The importance of organizing spatial information to facilitate relational thinking and mapping is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of symmetry in the mirror-image confusions of preschoolers.

64 children between 3 and 5 yrs old were given a location copying task both with a standard and comparison display side by side (horizontally aligned) and with displays aligned along their diagonals. Displays were pegboards of 3 levels of complexity: 2-by-2, 4-by-4, and 6-by-6 holes. Left–right reversals were the predominant errors and were frequent for horizontally aligned displays; left–right reversals were less frequent and performance more accurate for diagonally aligned displays. Only for interior positions on the 6-by-6 hole array were errors other than left–right reversals frequent; and for these positions only, alignment did not influence accuracy. Results fail to support P. Bryant's (1973, 1974) hypothesis that mirror-image confusions are no more frequent than other in-line (in-row) errors and that these errors result from dependence on an in-line comparison strategy. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Splitting visual space with attention.

The present study aimed at showing a spatial compatibility effect (and, by implication, a right–left subdivision of space) solely attributable to the orienting of attention. Five groups of 8 normal Ss were required to give right–left discriminative responses to stimuli presented within one of 6 empty boxes arranged in a horizontal row. Reaction times and errors were recorded. A right–left grouping of the boxes occurred regardless of whether Ss' fixation was kept at the intermediate position (Exp 1) or at one extremity (Exp 2) of the row. In Exps 3 and 4, Ss' attention was not aligned with a fixed position but was moved, through peripheral cues, from trial to trial and positioned between different pairs of adjacent boxes. Results showed that the display was again subdivided into 2 regions and that the reference point for the right–left subdivision was the focus of attention. In Exp 5, eye position was instrumentally monitored, and Ss' attention was directed by central cues. The results confirmed that the focusing of attention leads to a right–left partitioning of space. Directing attention to a position in space brings about a right–left perceptual organization that predominates over that provided by the other egocentric reference axes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Length and distance: Do preschoolers think that occlusion brings things together?

Preschoolers often assert that objects become closer together when part of the distance between them is occluded (occlusion?=?nearer). Piaget argued that this is due to young children's use of a topological spatial representation. Three studies explored the occlusion?=?nearer phenomenon. In Study 1, children who asserted that occlusion?=?nearer nonetheless picked the same stick before and after occlusion as just fitting between 2 points. Study 2 showed that occlusion?=?nearer is due neither to a belief that all movement alters distance nor to a general misunderstanding about the terms near and far. In Study 3, children shown separate occluded and unoccluded gaps picked shorter sticks to span occluded gaps, indicating a perceptual basis for the occlusion?=?nearer phenomenon. Preschool children do not appear to change the geometries they use to represent space, but do show increases in the generality and explicitness with which they map early spatial knowledge onto spatial language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Episodic spatial memory in adulthood.

Two experiments examined age-related differences in memory for spatial location information in a museum exhibit (Exp 1) and in a secretarial office (Exp 2). In Exp 1, Ss were the visitors to the exhibit (N?=?302, 15–74 yrs of age), and memory was assessed using a map test. In Exp 2, Ss were 64 young adults (M?=?21.2 yrs) and 32 older adults (M?=?71.2 yrs), and memory was assessed using both a map test and a relocation test. The relocation test required Ss to replace the to-be-remembered targets where they appeared at study. Exp 1 showed an age-related decline in spatial memory performance, and it placed the onset of this decline in the 6th decade of life. Exp 2 showed an age-related decline on both tests, but age effects were smaller on the relocation test than on the map test, and when Ss knew that spatial memory would be tested than when they were not informed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial visualizing in children.

Conducted 4 experiments on visualization of space in 108 2nd and 11th graders and undergraduates, 102 4-5, 6-7, and 9-10 yr olds, and 30 kindergartners and 3rd and 6th graders. Exp I used a localization task, and evidence was found that both children and adults spontaneously visualize their unseen hand when it is touched. In the remaining 3 experiments, S was required to manipulate spatial information mentally. Results show that (a) preelementary school children did not carry out such manipulations and responded instead to the topological properties of the problem; (b) elementary school children were increasingly more skilled at mental manipulation with age; and (c) the ability to manipulate spatial images correlated with performance on a test of spatial visualization, particularly in older elementary school children. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The standard object-sorting task as a measure of conceptual organization.

In object-sorting tasks, which are designed to assess developmental differences in conceptual organization, children are shown a variety of objects and told to put the things that are alike together. It was hypothesized that younger children construct designs, alignments, and scenes not necessarily because they have different principles of conceptual organization but because they are distracted by the task of spatial arrangement. This hypothesis was tested by having 60 3- and 4-yr-olds sort identical objects 2 times, once onto sheets of paper and once into transparent plastic bags, which do not readily allow for spatial arrangement. As predicted, when the salience of the spatial configuration was reduced, Ss' classifications improved. Since no feedback, modeling, or training of any type was given, Ss must have capitalized on an already existing conceptual system that is more like an adult's than their typical sorting would suggest. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Directionally selective mnemonic properties of neurons in the lateral dorsal nucleus of the thalamus of rats

The hippocampal formation has been extensively studied for its special role in visual spatial learning and navigation. To ascertain the nature of the associations made, or computations performed, by hippocampus, it is important to delineate the functional contributions of its afferents. Therefore, single units were recorded in the lateral dorsal nucleus of the thalamus (LDN) as rats performed multiple trials on a radial maze. Many LDN neurons selectively discharged when an animal's head was aligned along particular directions in space, irrespective of its location in the test room. These direction-sensitive cells were localized to the dorsal aspect of the caudal two-thirds of the LDN, the site of innervation by retinal recipient pretectal and intermediate/deep-layer superior colliculus cells (Thompson and Robertson, 1987b). The directional specificity and preference of LDN cells were disrupted if rats were placed on the maze in darkness. If the room light was then turned on, the original preference was restored. If the light was again turned off, directional firing was maintained briefly. Normal directional firing lasted about 2-3 min. After this time, the directional preference (but not specificity) appeared to "rotate" systematically in either the clockwise or counterclockwise direction. The duration of normal directional discharge patterns in darkness could be extended to 30 min by varying the behavior of the animal. LDN cells required visual input to initialize reliable directional firing. After the rat viewed the environment, directional specificity was maintained in the absence of visual cues. Maximal directional firing was achieved only when the rat viewed the entire test room, and not just the scene associated with the directional preference of the cell. Thus, contextual information seems important. Also, a significant correlation was found between directional specificity and errors made on the maze during acquisition of the task. It was concluded that the LDN may pass on to the hippocampal formation directional information that is not merely a reflection of current sensory input. As such, the LDN may serve an important integrative function for limbic spatial learning systems.     

Early Development of Scaling Ability.

The map is a small-scaled version of the space it represents. It has been argued that children have difficulty interpreting maps because they do not understand scale relations. Recent research has shown that even preschoolers can solve problems that involve scaling in one dimension. This study examined whether early scaling ability extends to tasks involving two-dimensional maps and referent spaces of different sizes. Results showed that about 60% of the 4-year-olds and 90% of the 5-year-olds tested used distance information presented on a map to locate an object in a two-dimensional spatial layout. Children had more difficulties in solving mapping tasks with a larger referent space. This decrease in accuracy as a function of space size on the mapping task was greater than would have been expected on the basis of performance on a parallel nonmapping task. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the mechanisms underlying early scaling ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional equivalence of spatial images from touch and vision: Evidence from spatial updating in blind and sighted individuals.

This research examined whether visual and haptic map learning yield functionally equivalent spatial images in working memory, as evidenced by similar encoding bias and updating performance. In 3 experiments, participants learned 4-point routes either by seeing or feeling the maps. At test, blindfolded participants made spatial judgments about the maps from imagined perspectives that were either aligned or misaligned with the maps as represented in working memory. Results from Experiments 1 and 2 revealed a highly similar pattern of latencies and errors between visual and haptic conditions. These findings extend the well-known alignment biases for visual map learning to haptic map learning, provide further evidence of haptic updating, and most important, show that learning from the 2 modalities yields very similar performance across all conditions. Experiment 3 found the same encoding biases and updating performance with blind individuals, demonstrating that functional equivalence cannot be due to visual recoding and is consistent with an amodal hypothesis of spatial images. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Egocentrism in spatial thinking: It depends on your point of view.

Tested 63 kindergartners on a spatial perspective task in which they had to copy the location and orientation of objects when the model and response spaces were aligned or one was rotated 90 or 180.. There were very few errors when the spaces were aligned, and there were significantly more errors on the 180. than the 90. rotations. Egocentric responding dominated spatial responding on the 180. but was infrequent on the 90. rotations. These findings are explained as due to the symmetry relations between space and self for each perspective difference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial orientation and the representation of space with parietal lobe lesions

Damage to the human parietal cortex leads to disturbances of spatial perception and of motor behaviour. Within the parietal lobe, lesions of the superior and of the inferior lobule induce quite different, characteristic deficits. Patients with inferior (predominantly right) parietal lobe lesions fail to explore the contralesional part of space by eye or limb movements (spatial neglect). In contrast, superior parietal lobe lesions lead to specific impairments of goal-directed movements (optic ataxia). The observations reported in this paper support the view of dissociated functions represented in the inferior and the superior lobule of the human parietal cortex. They suggest that a spatial reference frame for exploratory behaviour is disturbed in patients with neglect. Data from these patients' visual search argue that their failure to explore the contralesional side is due to a disturbed input transformation leading to a deviation of egocentric space representation to the ipsilesional side. Data further show that this deviation follows a rotation around the earth-vertical body axis to the ipsilesional side rather than a translation towards that side. The results are in clear contrast to explanations that assume a lateral gradient ranging from a minimum of exploration in the extreme contralesional to a maximum in the extreme ipsilesional hemispace. Moreover, the failure to orient towards and to explore the contralesional part of space appears to be distinct from those deficits observed once an object of interest has been located and releases reaching. Although patients with neglect exhibit a severe bias of exploratory movements, their hand trajectories to targets in peripersonal space may follow a straight path. This result suggests that (i) exploratory and (ii) goal-directed behaviour in space do not share the same neural control mechanisms. Neural representation of space in the inferior parietal lobule seems to serve as a matrix for spatial exploration and for orienting in space but not for visuomotor processes involved in reaching for objects. Disturbances of such processes rather appear to be prominent in patients with more superior parietal lobe lesions and optic ataxia.     

Spatial and temporal contributions to the structure of spatial memory.

Three experiments investigated the effects of spatial and temporal contiguity in item recognition, location judgment, and distance estimation tasks. Ss learned the locations of object names in spatial arrays, which were divided into 2 regions. The names of locations were presented during map learning so that critical pairs appeared close in space and close in time, close in space but far in time, far in space but close in time, and far in space and far in time. Names primed each other in recognition only when they were neighbors in both space and time. In contrast, the effects of spatial and temporal contiguity in priming in location judgments were additive. Finally, temporal contiguity affected estimates of Euclidean distance when locations were close together, but not when they were far apart. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unpacking the cognitive map: The parallel map theory of hippocampal function.

In the parallel map theory, the hippocampus encodes space with 2 mapping systems. The bearing map is constructed primarily in the dentate gyrus from directional cues such as stimulus gradients. The sketch map is constructed within the hippocampus proper from positional cues. The integrated map emerges when data from the bearing and sketch maps are combined. Because the component maps work in parallel, the impairment of one can reveal residual learning by the other. Such parallel function may explain paradoxes of spatial learning, such as learning after partial hippocampal lesions, taxonomic and sex differences in spatial learning, and the function of hippocampal neurogenesis. By integrating evidence from physiology to phylogeny, the parallel map theory offers a unified explanation for hippocampal function. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of the goal on children's exploration and memory of large-scale space.

Investigated developmental differences in spatial exploration and memory depending on the purpose for which 32 6–7 and 8–9 yr olds explored the space. Ss were instructed prior to exploring a funhouse to attend to either the layout of the space or the route through the space. Ss given instructions to study the layout studied and remembered more layout-relevant information, such as the number and location of dead-end rooms and the relations between spatial features, than did those in the route condition; this same pattern was found for the 6–7 and the 8–9 yr olds. Results suggest that layout knowledge includes knowledge of routes, that layout rather than route knowledge emphasizes the interrelationship of spatial information, and that the acquisition of route or layout knowledge depends on the purpose of obtaining the information. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental organization of maps.

Previous studies deconfounding spatial and temporal proximity during map learning have found a temporal influence on mental map organization. The authors explored whether this observed priming effect reflected the manner in which a map was learned by having people either name objects or point to them during learning. Naming objects resulted in temporal organization but pointing to objects resulted in spatial organization, suggesting that mental map organization is sensitive to emphasizing different types of map information during learning. The authors also explored whether the temporal organization observed in the naming group was influenced by the ease of using spatial information during learning, such as when the expectancy to use spatial information was made explicit or when a consistent temporal order was absent. When naming map objects, evidence for a spatial organization was weak, whereas a temporal organization was observed when a consistent temporal order was present. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Observing and imitating the formation of object classes during the second year of life.

Used a pretest–posttest design with modeling and control groups to assess the impact of modeling on deferred imitation of groupings based on object similarity. 24 children at 3 ages (12, 18, and 24 mo) observed an adult produce class groupings and alignments of objects. By 18 and 24 mo, there was significant deferred imitation of object groupings. There was virtually no effect at 12 mo. Moreover, only at 24 mo were classified sets spatially aligned. Results indicate that observing adult classification will at least facilitate object grouping during the latter part of the 2nd yr, and that it may promote the use of spatial alignments as organizing devices or as modes of depicting object classes. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)