Is the donut in front of the car? An electrophysiological study examining spatial reference frame processing.

Taylor, Holly A.; Faust, Robert; Sitnikova, Tatiana; Naylor, Susan J.; Holcomb, D. Phillip J.

doi:10.1037/h0087364

Cited by 7 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…In contrast, participants responded well above chance when the term fit the intrinsic frame. This finding parallels neurophysiological evidence from our lab (Taylor et al 1999(Taylor et al , 2001a. Taylor and colleagues showed a larger N400 when the intrinsic reference frame was not used.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Intuitively, the intrinsic frame seems to require additional cognitive processing, such as determining the object's principal axes. Despite this extra processing, recent neurophysiological studies using event-related potentials (ERPs) support dominant intrinsic frame use (Carlson et al 2002;Taylor et al 1999Taylor et al , 2001a. Results of Taylor et al (1999Taylor et al ( , 2001a indicated predominant use of the intrinsic frame by showing a larger N400 ERP component when the intrinsic reference frame was not used.…”

Section: Information Processing Strategies and Demandsmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Despite this extra processing, recent neurophysiological studies using event-related potentials (ERPs) support dominant intrinsic frame use (Carlson et al 2002;Taylor et al 1999Taylor et al , 2001a. Results of Taylor et al (1999Taylor et al ( , 2001a indicated predominant use of the intrinsic frame by showing a larger N400 ERP component when the intrinsic reference frame was not used. The N400 is hypothesized to reflect greater need for semantic integration (Holcomb 1993).…”

Section: Information Processing Strategies and Demandsmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Other frames must be computed through processes such as mental rotation. However, other researchers have found no evidence supporting relative frame dominance and instead support intrinsic frame dominance (Carlson-Radvansky and Irwin 1993;Carlson-Radvansky and Radvansky 1996;Taylor et al 1999Taylor et al , 2001a. Still other research suggests a highly flexible, resource intensive approach wherein more than one reference frame may initially be activated (Carlson et al 2002;Carlson-Radvansky and Jiang 1998).…”

Section: Information Processing Strategies and Demandsmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Consistent with Bryant et al (2001) we predicted that memory load would influence reference frame processing. When responding from memory, participants should prefer using the intrinsic frame as demonstrated by Taylor et al (2001a). Responses based on perceptually available comparisons should show less preference because people can perceptually access information about the relative frame.…”

Section: Information Processing Strategies and Demandsmentioning

confidence: 96%

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Where is the donut? Factors influencing spatial reference frame use

Taylor

Rapp

2004

Cogn Process

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Because different reference frames can be used to describe a simple spatial situation such as the relationship between two objects, spatial descriptions can be confusing and/or ambiguous. To reduce this difficulty, do people assume a particular reference frame when interpreting spatial descriptions? If so, does the makeup of the spatial scene affect this assumption? Does cognitive load interact with this assumption? In three experiments, we examined reference frame use and how situational and cognitive factors interact with spatial description interpretation. The main cognitive factor involved memory load, i.e., whether responses were made from memory or not. From the features of the scene (object-facing direction, located object position) emerged two interactions of interest. First, since objectfacing direction has implications for the cognitive strategies used to determine spatial relations, we assessed how object facing interacted with reference frame use. Second, we assessed how the descriptive axes associated with multiple reference frames influenced reference frame use. The results indicated that people predominantly use the intrinsic reference frame. Yet, despite this tendency, cognitive and situational variables also affected responses, both alone and in combination. These findings suggest that people maintain cognitive flexibility when interpreting spatial descriptions to reduce or inform potential ambiguities.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%