Abstract
A common assumption about spatial memory is that it is organized along one or more reference directions such that access to memory is easier along directions aligned with the reference direction(s). This assumption rests to no small part on frequently replicated alignment effects arising in judgment of relative direction. In this contribution, we report an experiment designed to investigate a possible alternative explanation of alignment effects. By contrasting performance in a judgment of relative direction task with performance in an ego perspective taking task, we tested to what extent alignment effects arise from encoding of relations in addition to or instead of from organization along reference directions. Experimental results suggest little if any contribution of relation encoding on alignment effects, thus lending further support to the assumption of reference directions in spatial memory. Data from both tasks yielded the same alignment effects and provided evidence for a single direction being encoded in memory. Moreover, our results shed new light on and raise questions concerning differential sensorimotor and cognitive influence on spatial memory use. While both influence memory use, systematic bias seems to arise solely from reference directions, along which memory is organized.
Highlights
Memory for spatial locations and layouts of objects in one’s surrounding is a fundamental aspect of human cognition
Our results provide preliminary evidence that the observed alignment effects arise mainly from reference directions encoded in memory and only to little extent from differential encoding of inter-object relations2
As previously argued (Street & Wang, 2014), the attractor at 0◦ indicates that spatial memory is organized along a single reference direction, our results imply that (a) performance in both tasks relies on similar memory organization and (b) this memory is organized along a single predominant reference direction
Summary
Memory for spatial locations and layouts of objects in one’s surrounding is a fundamental aspect of human cognition. Access to memory is assumed to be faster and less error-prone along certain directions, called reference directions, defined by the reference frame. Evidence for such memory organization comes from empirical studies asking participants to perform judgment of relative directions (JRD). An often-replicated result of JRD studies are so-called alignment effects (Marchette et al, 2011; Shelton & McNamara, 2001; Meilinger & Balthoff, 2013; Street & Wang, 2014; Kelly & McNamara, 2008), which are characterized by faster and less error-prone JRD performance for some imaginary headings than for others
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