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Constructing representations of spatial location from briefly presented displays

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Abstract

Spatial memory and reasoning rely heavily on allocentric (often map-like) representations of spatial knowledge. While research has documented many ways in which spatial information can be represented in allocentric form, less is known about how such representations are constructed. For example: Are the very early, pre-attentive parts of the process hard-wired, or can they be altered by experience? We addressed this issue by presenting sub-saccadic (53 ms) masked stimuli consisting of a target among one to three reference features. We then shifted the location of the feature array, and asked participants to identify the target’s new relative location. Experience altered feature processing even when the display duration was too short to allow attention re-allocation. The results demonstrate the importance of early perceptual processes in the creation of representations of spatial location, and the malleability of those processes based on experience and expectations.

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Acknowledgments

The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. This research was sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Warfighter Readiness Research Division and by grant 10RH06COR from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). We thank Rayka Mohebbi for experiment software development and data collection. Portions of this research were presented at the Association for Psychological Science 22nd Annual Convention.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Air Force Research Laboratory, Cognitive Models and Agents Branch, Wright Patterson AFB, 2620 Q St. – Building 852, Dayton, OH, 45433, USA

    Glenn Gunzelmann

  2. Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, USA

    Don R. Lyon

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  1. Glenn Gunzelmann
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  2. Don R. Lyon
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Correspondence to Glenn Gunzelmann.

Additional information

Handling Editor: Thomas Shipley (Temple University).

Reviewers: Weimin Mou (University of Alberta), Victor Schinazi (ETH Zurich)

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Gunzelmann, G., Lyon, D.R. Constructing representations of spatial location from briefly presented displays. Cogn Process 18, 81–85 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-016-0775-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-016-0775-4

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