Access to Knowledge of Spatial Structure at Novel Points of Observation

Adults were asked to judge the self-to-object directions in a room from novel points of observation that differed from their actual point at times only by a rotation and at other times only by a translation. The results show for the rotation trials that the errors and latencies when a novel point wa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition memory, and cognition, 1989-11, Vol.15 (6), p.1157-1165
Main Author: Rieser, John J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition. Intelligence
Form Perception
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Imagination
Knowledge
Knowledge Level
Locomotion
Orientation
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychomotor Performance
Reaction Time
Social Environment
Social research
Space Perception
Spatial Imagery
Spatial Organization
Spatial perception. Time perception
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Summary:Adults were asked to judge the self-to-object directions in a room from novel points of observation that differed from their actual point at times only by a rotation and at other times only by a translation. The results show for the rotation trials that the errors and latencies when a novel point was imagined were worse than the baseline responses from their actual points of observation, and the latencies varied as a function of the magnitude of the to-be-imagined rotation. For the translation trials, on the other hand, the errors and latencies when a novel point was imagined were comparable to the baseline responses from their actual point and did not vary significantly across the different imagined station points. The evidence indicates that subjects know the object-to-object relations directly, without going through the origin of a coordinate system. In addition, similarities in processing during imagination on the one hand, and perception and action on the other are discussed.
ISSN:0278-7393
1939-1285
DOI:10.1037/0278-7393.15.6.1157