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Updated: Aug 7, 2026

The (Spatial) Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition
Published on: February 19, 2018
The role of uncertainty in the systematic spatial mislocalization of moving objects
Eli Brenner1, Robert J van Beers, Gerben Rotman
1Department of Neuroscience, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, Netherlands. e.brenner@fbw.vu.nl
Abstract:
It only makes sense to talk about the position of a moving object if one specifies the time at which its position is of interest. The authors here show that when a flash or tone specifies the moment of interest, subjects estimate the moving object to be closer to where it passes the fixation point and further in its direction of motion than it really is. The authors propose that these biases arise from a combination of a large temporal uncertainty, a temporal asymmetry related to sampling the moving object's position, and a bias toward believing that one is looking at what one sees.
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