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External and body-centered frames of reference in spatial memory: evidence from touch
Susanna Millar1, Zainab Al-Attar
1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, England. susanna.millar@psy.ox.ac.uk
Perception & Psychophysics
|April 21, 2004
Summary
Spatial coding accuracy improves with congruent external and body-centered cues. Disrupting body cues doubles errors, but external cues restore performance, showing independent additive effects.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Human Spatial Navigation
Background:
- Spatial coding relies on reference frames, typically body-centered or external.
- Haptic perception offers a unique modality to study spatial coding without relying on distal visual cues.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the independent and combined effects of body-centered and external reference cues on spatial coding.
- To understand how disruptions in reference frames impact spatial memory for haptic locations.
Main Methods:
- Participants navigated an irregular sequence of haptic locations along a raised-line route.
- Body-centered reference was manipulated by rotating the map relative to the body.
- External reference cues were introduced through instructions to use a surrounding frame.
Main Results:
- Disrupting body-centered reference doubled spatial recall errors.
- Adding external reference cues to disrupted body-centered reference reduced errors to baseline levels.
- Adding external reference cues to intact body-centered reference halved errors, indicating independent additive effects.
Conclusions:
- Accurate spatial coding depends on the congruence of multiple reference frames.
- External and body-centered reference cues exert independent, additive influences on spatial coding.
- Local tactile cues may also contribute to spatial sequence memory.