Distraction shrinks space

Abstract

Research investigating how people remember the distance of paths they walk has shown two apparently conflicting effects of experience during encoding on subsequent distance judgments. By the feature accumulation effect discrete path features such as turns, houses or other landmarks cause an increase in remembered distance. By the distractor effect performance of a concurrent task during path encoding causes a decrease in remembered distance. This study asks: What are the conditions that determine whether the feature accumulation or the distractor effect dominates distortions of space? In two experiments, blindfolded participants were guided along two legs of a right triangle while reciting nonsense syllables. On some trials, one of the two legs contained features: horizontally mounted car antennas (gates) that bent out of the way as participants walked past. At the end of the second leg participants either indicated the remembered path leg lengths using their hands in a ratio estimation task, or attempted to walk, unguided, straight back to the beginning. In addition to response mode, visual access to the paths and time between encoding and response were manipulated to determine if these factors affected feature accumulation or distractor effects. Path legs with added features were remembered as shorter than those without, but this result was only significant in the haptic response mode data. This finding suggests that when people form spatial memory representations with the intention of navigating in room-scale spaces, interfering with information accumulation substantially distorts spatial memory.

Spatial learning while navigating with severely degraded viewing: The role of attention and mobility monitoring.

“…Such divided attention disrupts path integration performance and perception of the distance one has traveled (Glasauer, Schneider, Grasso, & Ivanenko, 2007; Glasauer et al, 2009; Sargent, Zacks, Philbeck, & Flores, 2013). Results largely suggest that when cognitively distracted, people underestimate the distance traveled.…”

“…Although the literature has not specifically addressed how distraction associated with mobility monitoring might influence navigation and spatial learning abilities, previous research has investigated the impact of distraction or dual-task performance when navigating blind and with normal vision. Such divided attention disrupts path integration performance and perception of the distance one has traveled (Glasauer, Schneider, Grasso, & Ivanenko, 2007; Glasauer et al, 2009; Sargent, Zacks, Philbeck, & Flores, 2013). Results largely suggest that when cognitively distracted, people underestimate the distance traveled.…”

Failure to see money on a tree: inattentional blindness for objects that guided behavior

“…Thus cell phone use while walking leads to inattentional blindness for interesting objects near an individual’s path (Hyman et al, 2010). Other forms of distraction and divided attention also lead to inattentional blindness (Chabris et al, 2011) and to mistaken judgments of walking distance (Sargent et al, 2013). In spite of lapses of awareness in these studies, people successfully navigated through complex environments.…”

Spatiotemporal predictability alters perceived duration of visual events: Memento effect revisited.

“…A similar effect of distracting stimuli has been observed in the spatial cognition literature. In these studies, distracting stimuli during navigating reduced the perceived length of a path (Sargent, Zacks, Philbeck, & Flores, 2013).…”