1,721,103 research outputs found
Cognitive styles: Errors in directional judgments
No full textPrevious studies on spatial memory have shown that, in judging direction, participants are more accurate and faster when a map is aligned with the perspective of the spatial layout they had learned (alignment effect). Rossano and Warren (1989 Perception 18 215-229) have shown that when participants have to do a contra-aligned judgment they can either answer correctly, or make alignment or mirror-image errors. We think that the kind of response depends on the different way in which people acquire environmental knowledge: landmark, route, and survey. We hypothesise that landmark and route participants show alignment effects and make, respectively, alignment errors and mirror-image errors, whereas survey participants do not show an alignment effect. An experiment is reported in which participants performed three tasks in order to distinguish their cognitive style. We selected thirty landmark, thirty route, and twenty-eight survey participants. They were then submitted to directional judgment tasks to verify whether the alignment effect was present and to observe the kind of responses. The results revealed that survey participants did not show an alignment effect, and that the kind of errors could depend on the directional judgment task participants had to do, and not only on the cognitive style
IL SENSO DELL’ORIENTAMENTO: QUANTO C ONTA LA FAMILIARITÀ CON L’AMBIENTE?
No full textThe present study investigates the self-report sense of direction (SOD) considering
the different role of some internal factors (gender, cognitive style and familiarity
with the environment) by means of a new self-report questionnaire. Instruments
used until now have considered just gender and cognitive styles but never familiarity.
Here, following these considerations, we aimed to observe if familiarity can also influence
SOD. With this aim we asked at eighty college students to fill in a familiarity and
cognitive style questionnaire. Our results showed the importance to consider the three
factors when evaluating the individual’s SOD. Indeed, when people have a cognitive
style based on poor spatial ability (i.e., landmark) they will be able to represent the environment
like-map (i.e., survey corresponding to a cognitive style based on high spatial
ability) only when they are highly familiar with it. In conclusion, to have a real orienteering
individual profile and to individuate specific topographical orientation disorder
it is very useful to consider each individual internal factor
IL SENSO DELL’ORIENTAMENTO: QUANTO C ONTA LA FAMILIARITÀ CON L’AMBIENTE?
No full textIl presente lavoro intende valutare la percezione che le persone hanno del
proprio senso dell’orientamento (SO) considerando la possibile influenza dei fattori interni
(sesso, stile cognitivo e familiarità con l’ambiente) attraverso la presentazione di
un nuovo questionario. Gli strumenti finora usati considerano il genere o gli stili cognitivi
ma non la familiarità con l’ambiente. Sulla base di queste considerazioni, abbiamo
voluto verificare se la familiarità influenza anche l’auto-valutazione del proprio
SO. A tal fine si è richiesto a ottanta studenti di rispondere ad un questionario sul
senso dell’orientamento e sulla familiarità ambientale. I risultati mostrano l’importanza
di considerare tutti e tre i fattori quando si valuta il SO di un individuo: anche
se una persona ha uno stile cognitivo caratterizzato da scarse competenze spaziali (es.
landmark) sarà in grado di avere una rappresentazione mentale tipo-mappa (es. survey,
equivalente ad uno stile cognitivo con elevate competenze spaziali) di un ambiente che
conosce molto bene. In conclusione, per avere una fotografia fedele di come si orienta
un individuo e rilevare anche eventuali disturbi specifici dell’orientamento è utile non
trascurare nessuno dei fattori interni.The present study investigates the self-report sense of direction (SOD) considering
the different role of some internal factors (gender, cognitive style and familiarity
with the environment) by means of a new self-report questionnaire. Instruments
used until now have considered just gender and cognitive styles but never familiarity.
Here, following these considerations, we aimed to observe if familiarity can also influence
SOD. With this aim we asked at eighty college students to fill in a familiarity and
cognitive style questionnaire. Our results showed the importance to consider the three
factors when evaluating the individual’s SOD. Indeed, when people have a cognitive
style based on poor spatial ability (i.e., landmark) they will be able to represent the environment
like-map (i.e., survey corresponding to a cognitive style based on high spatial
ability) only when they are highly familiar with it. In conclusion, to have a real orienteering
individual profile and to individuate specific topographical orientation disorder
it is very useful to consider each individual internal factor
FAMILIARITY AND SPATIAL COGNITIVE STYLE: HOW IMPORTANT ARE THEY FOR SPATIAL REPRESENTATION?
No full textHow we acquire and represent spatial information is one of the most important unsolved issues in spatial cognition. Siegel and White (1975) affirmed that different forms of environmental knowledge are acquired and represented depending on the type of information selected: landmark, characterized by environmental patterns that are perceptually salient or important for the person; route, based on the pathes generally used to connect landmarks; and survey, an overall configuration of the environment, similar to a map. According to these authors, anyone can reach survey representation with extensive experience of the environment. Recently, Pazzaglia and co-workers (2000) demonstrated that these three types of representations correspond to three different spatial cognitive styles. Conversely, according to Montello (1998) a pure landmark or route representation does not exist; indeed, during their first exposure to the environment, people acquire and represent an overall survey configuration of it. Our aim was to determine whether environmental familiarity and/or spatial cognitive style predict the way we acquire and represent spatial information. Forty participants who had different degrees of familiarity with the Italian city of Bologna took part in the experiment. Familiarity with Bologna was evaluated using a questionnaire. This city was selected because it has a small and well-defined centre that can be easily explored on foot. Participants were further subdivided by spatial cognitive style to assess its weight in environmental representation. They performed six spatial tasks concerning Bologna that measured different spatial abilities, based on Siegel and White's frameworks (1975). We found that neither familiarity with the environment nor spatial cognitive style predict the correct solution of landmark tasks, whereas both familiarity with the environment and spatial cognitive style predict the correct solution of route and survey tasks.. Thus, we can affirm that both familiarity with the environment and spatial cognitive style are important for acquiring and representing spatial information, but their involvement depends on task demands. To our knowledge, this is the first study in which knowledge of a real town has been measured. This ecological setting allowed us to propose a new model to explain individual differences in moving successfully through the environment
I believe I’m good at orienting myself... But is that true?
No full textThe present study aimed to analyse beliefs that men and women have with respect to their sense of direction (SOD) and whether they correlate with spatial environmental task performance. Eighty-four students filled in the short version of the Familiarity and Spatial Cognitive Style Scale to evaluate beliefs on their SOD, knowledge of the city (TK), spatial ability (SA) and wayfinding (WA) and performed three spatial environmental tasks. Results showed that gender did not predict the performance on the spatial environmental tasks, whereas it can be predicted by participants' beliefs related to their SOD and TK. The findings point out the need to identify specific training aimed at improving women's metacognitive skills in order to delete or reduce gender differences in SA
Object localisation and frames of reference
No full textIn this paper, we explore which spatial frames of reference, egocentric or allocentric, are used to locate
objects either in relation to ourselves (i.e. subject to-object localisation) or to other objects (i.e. object to-
object localisation). In particular, we wanted to know whether the same or different frames of reference are
used in these two different kinds of localisation after learning the environment in an egocentric way. Egocentric
frames of reference are determined by the position of the person in relation to the spatial layout, whereas allocentric frames of reference are centred on the environment or on objects, independent of a person’s
position. We hypothesised that subject-to-object localization is based on egocentric spatial representations,
whereas object-to-object localisation is based on allocentric spatial representations. Participants were asked
to study eight common objects, placed in a circle. Next, half of the participants had to point to an object in
relation to their imagined position (egocentric condition) and the other half to an object in relation to another
object (allocentric condition). The overall results show no difference between subject-to-object and object-to object localisation. In both cases, access to positions corresponding to the front/back body axis was facilitated,
in terms of both latency and error. Moreover, participants were able to retrieve objects’ positions better
from the perspective from which they had learned the spatial array than from new perspectives. These results
support the conclusion that egocentric coordinates, which are selected on the basis of our body-centred
experience of the environment, define spatial representations underlying both subject-to-object and object-to object localisation
Individual differences and counterfactual thinking
Full text linkThe study explored the impact of reasoning capabilities and five personality dimensions, measured by the 16PF-5 (extraversion, anxiety, self-control, tough-mindedness, independence), on counterfactuals and responsibility attribution in judicial cases. The authors hypothesised that individual differences in these personality traits predicted the direction, magnitude, and content of counterfactuals and responsibility judgments. The main results showed that Anxiety (positively) and Self-Control (negatively) predicted downward counterfactual judgments in a medical malpractice case, whereas people with high reasoning capabilities generated upward counterfactual in an assault case. Perfectionism positively predicted an upward direction independently of the scenarios. Extraversion and reasoning capabilities predicted the attribution of responsibility to the victim, whereas Anxiety and Tough-Mindedness predicted responsibility to external causes in the medical malpractice case. For the assault case, Self-Control predicted both the attribution of responsibility to the agent and to external causes. Results were discussed considering implications of counterfactuals in the judicial field
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