The choice of intrinsic axis under multi-cue conditions

In the course of spatial representation, the choice of intrinsic axis depends on various spatial and non-spatial properties. The main purpose of the current study is to investigate how people choose the intrinsic axis in a virtual reality environment with spatial cues from different categories. Sixty-four participants (32 males and 32 females) each took part in one of two experiments. In each experiment, participants learned a layout comprising seven objects and viewed the scene through a head-mounted display from two perspectives. They then completed partial-scene-recognition tasks. Experiment 1 used objects lacking intrinsic orientations, and the directions of the symmetric axis (45°-315°) and the vertical side (0°-180°) of the mat were incongruent. Experiment 2 used avatars whose orientations were all aligned with the vertical mat side. Response patterns showed that the axis which was consistent with the initial learning perspective was chosen as the intrinsic axis in Experiment 1, while in Experiment 2, the 0°-180° axis was chosen. The results indicated that people would choose the intrinsic axis according to their original egocentric experience when there were two conflicting geometric cues of different categories, but if there were three geometric cues, the axis that was consistent with more cues was more likely to be chosen as intrinsic axis.