Humans have precise knowledge of familiar geographical slants

Whereas maps primarily represent the 2-dimensional layout of the environment, people are also aware of the 3-dimensional layout of their environment. An experiment conducted on a small college campus tested whether the remembered slants of familiar paths were precisely represented. Three measures of slant (verbal, manual, and pictorial) were collected in 2 different between-subject conditions (perception and memory) for 5 familiar paths on the campus of Swarthmore College, ranging in slant from 0.5° to 8.6°. Estimates from memory and from perception did not differ for any of the measures. Moreover, estimates from all measures, though different in mean value, were correlated within participant, suggesting a common underlying representation was consulted in all cases.