1,720,980 research outputs found
Frames of reference and categorical/coordinate spatial relations in a “what was where” task
Full text linkThe aim of this study was to explore how people use egocentric (i.e., with respect to their body) and allocentric (i.e., with respect to another element in the environment) references in combination with coordinate (metric) or categorical (abstract) spatial information to identify a target element. Participants were asked to memorize triads of 3D objects or 2D figures, and immediately or after a delay of 5 s, they had to verbally indicate what was the object/figure: (1) closest/farthest to them (egocentric coordinate task); (2) on their right/left (egocentric categorical task); (3) closest/farthest to another object/figure (allocentric coordinate task); (4) on the right/left of another object/figure (allocentric categorical task). Results showed that the use of 2D figures favored categorical judgments over the coordinate ones with either an egocentric or an allocentric reference frame, whereas the use of 3D objects specifically favored egocentric coordinate judgments rather than the allocentric ones. Furthermore, egocentric judgments were more accurate than allocentric judgments when the response was Immediate rather than delayed and 3D objects rather than 2D figures were used. This pattern of results is discussed in the light of the functional roles attributed to the frames of reference and spatial relations by relevant theories of visuospatial processing
Frames of reference and categorical and coordinate spatial relations: a hierarchical organization
No full textThe Relationship between Emotionally Laden Landmarks, Spatial Abilities, and Personality Traits: An Exploratory Study
Full text linkSeparate 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
Putting emotions in routes: the influence of emotionally laden landmarks on spatial memory
No full textThe aim of this study was to assess how people memorize spatial information of emotionally laden landmarks along a route and if the emotional value of the landmarks affects the way metric and configurational properties of the route itself are represented. Three groups of participants were asked to watch a movie of a virtual walk along a route. The route could contain positive, negative, or neutral landmarks. Afterwards, participants were asked to: (a) recognize the landmarks; (b) imagine to walk distances between landmarks; (c) indicate the position of the landmarks along the route; (d) judge the length of the route; (e) draw the route. Results showed that participants who watched the route with positive landmarks were more accurate in locating the landmarks along the route and drawing the route. On the other hand, participants in the negative condition judged the route as longer than participants in the other two conditions and were less accurate in mentally reproducing distances between landmarks. The data will be interpreted in the light of the “feelings-as-information theory” by Schwarz (2010) and the most recent evidence about the effect of emotions on spatial memory. In brief, the evidence collected in this study supports the idea that spatial cognition emerges from the interaction between an organism and contextual characteristics
The relationship between allocentric and egocentric frames of reference and categorical and coordinate spatial information processing
No full textWe report two experiments on the relationship between allocentric/egocentric frames of reference and
categorical/coordinate spatial relations. Jager and Postma (2003) suggest two theoretical possibilities
about their relationship: categorical judgements are better when combined with an allocentric reference
frame and coordinate judgements with an egocentric reference frame (interaction hypothesis);
allocentric/egocentric and categorical/coordinate form independent dimensions (independence
hypothesis). Participants saw stimuli comprising two vertical bars (targets), one above and the
other below a horizontal bar. They had to judge whether the targets appeared on the same side
(categorical) or at the same distance (coordinate) with respect either to their body-midline (egocentric)
Or to the centre of the horizontal bar (allocentric). The results from Experiment 1 showed a facilitation
In the allocentric and categorical conditions. In line with the independence hypothesis, no interaction
effect emerged. To see whether the results were affected by the visual salience of the stimuli, in
Experiment 2 the luminance of the horizontal bar was reduced. As a consequence, a significant
Interaction effect emerged indicating that categorical judgements were more accurate than coordinate
ones, and especially so in the allocentric condition. Furthermore, egocentric judgements were as
accurate as allocentric ones with a specific improvement when combined with coordinate spatial
relations. The data from Experiment 2 showed that the visual salience of stimuli affected the
relationship between allocentric/egocentric and categorical/coordinate dimensions. This suggests
that the emergence of a selective interaction between the two dimensions may be modulated by the
characteristics of the task
Lateralization of route continuation and route order
No full textNavigation is a complex cognitive ability and its structure is still poorly understood. Memory for route continuation and route order are hypothesized to be at least partially separate components of navigation ability. In the current experiment, participants studied a route in virtual reality. The dissociation between route continuation ("what turn did you make here?") and route order ("which object did you see first?") was tested in a visual half field paradigm, to assess lateralization patterns. Route continuation showed a left visual field advantage and route order a trend for a right visual field bias. This outcome further substantiates a dissociation between spatial and spatiotemporal aspects of navigation in humans
How coordinate and categorical spatial relations combine with egocentric and allocentric reference frames in a motor task: Effects of delay and stimuli characteristics
No full textThis study explores how people represent spatial information in order to accomplish a visuo-motor task. To this aim we combined two fundamental components of the human visuo-spatial system: egocentric and allocentric frames of reference and coordinate and categorical spatial relations. Specifically, participants learned the position of three objects and then had to judge the distance (coordinate information) and the relation (categorical information) of a target object with respect to themselves (egocentric frame) or with respect to another object (allocentric frame). They gave spatial judgments by reaching and touching the exact position or the side previously occupied by the target object. The possible influence of stimuli characteristics (3D objects vs. 2D images) and delay between learning phase and testing phase (1.5 vs. 5. s) was also assessed. Results showed an advantage of egocentric coordinate judgments over the allocentric coordinate ones independently from the kind of stimuli used and the temporal parameters of the response, whereas egocentric categorical judgments were more accurate than allocentric categorical ones only with 3D stimuli and when an immediate response was requested. This pattern of data is discussed in the light of the "perception-action" model by Milner and Goodale [13] and of neuroimaging evidence about frames of reference and spatial relations
Lateralized perception: The role of attention in spatial relation processing
No full textAny spatial situation can be approached either categorically - the window is to my left - or coordinately - the glass is 20. cm away from the bottle. Since the first description of the distinction between categorical and coordinate spatial relation processing, it has often been shown that they are processed by at least partially different underlying mechanisms, mainly located in the left and right hemisphere, respectively. A number of recent studies have suggested that spatial attention plays a particularly important part in the perception of space: categorical processing benefits from a local focus of attention, and coordinate processing profits from a global focus of attention. This suggests that the lateralization pattern is modified by the concurrent size of the attentional focus, and is consequently more dynamic than previously thought. Therefore, a thorough revision of earlier theories on spatial relation processing is in order. In this review, we present a new model on lateralization of spatial relation processing that explicitly describes the role of spatial attention
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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