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Updated: May 8, 2026
09:49
Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior
Published on: April 16, 2014
Strategy modulates spatial perspective-taking: evidence for dissociable disembodied and embodied routes
Mark R Gardner1, Mark Brazier, Caroline J Edmonds
11Department of Psychology, University of Westminster London, UK.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
|August 22, 2013
Summary
This study reveals two distinct strategies for spatial perspective-taking: an embodied route and a disembodied route. The disembodied route, relying on inhibitory control, is strategy-dependent and impacts response times.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Spatial perspective-taking involves understanding environments from different viewpoints.
- Previous research suggests an embodied route to spatial perspective-taking is strategically controlled.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the influence of strategy on spatial perspective-taking.
- To assess the role of a separable "disembodied" route involving inhibitory control mechanisms.
Main Methods:
- Ninety-two participants completed the "own body transformation" (OBT) perspective-taking task.
- A control task measured response inhibition in the absence of a figure.
Main Results:
- Perspective-taking performance correlated with response inhibition, particularly for participants using a left-right reversal strategy.
- This relationship was absent in participants who mentally transformed their orientation.
Conclusions:
- Findings suggest a double dissociation between embodied and disembodied routes to spatial perspective-taking.
- Spatial perspective-taking is modulated by strategy, with embodied routes minimally taxing executive functions.
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