Abstract
Separate research lines have shown that the way we process spatial information is influenced by individual factors, such as personality traits and basic spatial abilities. Alongside, recent studies suggest that environmental landmarks can be represented differently depending on their emotional content. However, to our knowledge, no study has addressed so far the issue of whether there is a relationship between individual factors and the way we represent and use spatial information that conveys emotional content. Therefore, this exploratory study aimed to (i) investigate the relationship between personality traits and the use of spatial strategies in relation to emotional stimuli; (ii) investigate if a different pattern emerges according to a body- or object-based spatial encodings. After watching movies of routes characterized by positive, negative, or neutral landmarks, participants performed a “route continuation” (RC, i.e., left/right decision) and a “distance comparison” task (DC, i.e., what was the landmark closest to X?). Furthermore, participants performed a mental rotation task (MR), the Corsi block tapping (CBT), and the Bergen right-left discrimination tests (B-RL). Personality traits were assessed through the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI). Results showed that a better performance at the RC task was associated with higher scores at CBT tasks in the positive condition and at B-RL test and agreeableness scale from TIPI in both positive and neutral conditions. Instead, the MR task positively correlated with the DC task in all conditions. In sum, individuals’ spatial abilities, personality traits, and task requests influenced the way emotionally laden landmarks were memorized.
Highlights
Very often, during the exploration of the environment, we come across elements that can have a positive or negative valence
The aim of this work was to explore the type of relationship that might exist between basic spatial abilities, personality traits, and representations of emotionally laden landmarks
This research work was the first to explore the possible role of individual factors, both in terms of basic spatial abilities and personality traits, in the spatial representation of emotionally laden landmarks
Summary
Very often, during the exploration of the environment, we come across elements that can have a positive (e.g., a beautiful villa or urban park) or negative valence (e.g., a degraded place, an overturned garbage can or an episode of violence). These elements can represent landmarks to which we attribute a personal dimension (cf [1]) and can be used according to specific spatial strategies: represent a route and orient ourselves during navigation (e.g., >). The path was perceived as longer in the presence of negative, rather than positive and neutral landmarks
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