Modeling memory for absolute location.

Lansdale, Mark

doi:10.1037/0033-295x.105.2.351

Cited by 32 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Specifically, we suggest that a saliency map provides reliable anchor points by which the spatial location of objects can be cognitively represented. Because the accuracy of location memory is related to the number and proximity of anchor points (Lansdale, 1998), it follows that targets close to a number of salient features will be more accurately recalled than those more distant, as is found here.…”

Section: Discussion and Future Directionssupporting

confidence: 64%

Something Overlooked? How experts in change detection use visual saliency

Lansdale

Underwood

Davies

2009

Applied Cognitive Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How does expertise in the analysis of particular images influence the effects of visual saliency upon attention? Expert analysts of aerial photographs and untrained viewers undertook change-detection and location memory tasks using aerial photographs with eye movements recorded throughout. Experts were more accurate in both tasks. Significant differences were also seen in the scanpaths: Untrained viewers fixated preferentially upon salient features throughout stimulus presentation whereas experts did not. However, both groups showed a strong influence of saliency in change detection and memory tasks. We interpret this apparent contradiction by: (i) assuming that the use of saliency in visual search is discretionary, and experts can use semantic information to prioritise where to fixate next; whereas, (ii) in tasks requiring spatial memory, analysis of visual saliency delivers easily acquired landmarks to reference the location of items in an image; a previously overlooked function used by expert and untrained viewers alike.How do we decide where to look in an image, and how much do bottom-up and top-down processes influence the decision? At one extreme, Itti and Koch (2000) developed a bottom-up model to predict where attention is directed on the basis of visual saliency. Saliency was defined by low-level visual characteristics of the image such as colour, intensity and orientation and the model predicted that areas of high saliency should attract the viewer's attention. Thus fixations are directed first to the region of highest saliency, then to the area of next highest saliency and so on in a quasi-automatic way.However, it is clear that visual search is open to top-down cognitive influences. When we inspect a scene, we direct our attention to the most likely locations rather than to the most visually salient objects in view (e.g. Torralba, Oliva, Castelhano, & Henderson, 2006). Underwood, Jebbett, and Roberts (2004) have also demonstrated the selective nature of searching for information in pictures in a task in which participants judged whether a sentence correctly representing a scene. Compared to seeing the picture first, participants viewing the image after the sentence made fewer fixations overall and these fixations were guided to the objects described in the sentence. The influence of saliency on early fixations is also diminished in tasks when participants search for a specific object; in which case participants are less likely to be distracted by conspicuous non-targets (Underwood, APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

show abstract

Section: Discussion and Future Directionssupporting

confidence: 64%

Something Overlooked? How experts in change detection use visual saliency

Lansdale

Underwood

Davies

2009

Applied Cognitive Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Huttenlocher, Hedges, and Duncan (1991) and Lansdale (1998) have proposed elegant mathematical models of positional uncertainty and bias in memory of the location of single object. Neither of these projects was aimed at investigating the spatial reference systems used in memory, although Huttenlocher et al concluded from the distributions of memory reports that participants used polar coordinates to represent the location of a single dot in a circle.…”

Section: Alternative Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Are the Locations of Objects in the Environment Represented in Memory?

McNamara

2003

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

140

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. This chapter summarizes a new theory of spatial memory. According to the theory, when people learn the locations of objects in a new environment, they interpret the spatial structure of that environment in terms of a spatial reference system. Our current conjecture is that a reference system intrinsic to the collection of objects is used. Intrinsic axes or directions are selected using egocentric (e.g., viewing perspective) and environmental (e.g., walls of the surrounding room) cues. The dominant cue is egocentric experience. The reference system selected at the first view is typically not updated with additional views or observer movement. However, if the first view is misaligned but a subsequent view is aligned with natural and salient axes in the environment, a new reference system is selected and the layout is reinterpreted in terms of this new reference system. The chapter also reviews evidence on the orientation dependence of spatial memories and recent results indicating that two representations may be formed when people learn a new environment; one preserves interobject spatial relations and the other comprises visual memories of experienced views.

show abstract

“…If matching the whole geometry is the default for young children and mature rats, as Hermer and Spelke have famously claimed [21], then it is perhaps surprising to see a role for a landmark (by which in this context we mean any feature whose relative location can be used to aid the matching process) creeping into the drop-off map-matching task, even in extremely sparse scenarios with fairly simple geometric layouts [19]. People's apparent use of such features, often apparently via some kind of propositional description of approximate relative location, may be related to the findings of an apparent tendency to code object location in both an exact and an inexact way in spatial memory [22]. The suggestion that the inexact description of relative location (depending on a landmark or other simplifying cue) may be to some extent a verbal strategy may help explain Hermer and Spelke's failure to find landmark use in their task in very young children or in rats.…”

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 97%

Effects of Geometry, Landmarks and Orientation Strategies in the ‘Drop-Off’ Orientation Task

Peebles

Davies

Mora

Spatial Information Theory

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Previous work is reviewed and an experiment described to examine the spatial and strategic cognitive factors impacting on human orientation in the 'drop-off' static orientation scenario, where a person is matching a scene to a map to establish directional correspondence. The relative roles of salient landmarks and scene content and geometry, including space syntax isovist measures, are explored both in terms of general effects, individual differences between participant strategies, and the apparent cognitive processes involved. In general people tend to be distracted by salient 3D landmarks even when they know these will not be detectable on the map, but benefit from a salient 2D landmark whose geometry is present in both images. However, cluster analysis demonstrated clear variations in strategy and in the relative roles of the geometry and content of the scene. Results are discussed in the context of improving future geographic information content.

show abstract

Modeling memory for absolute location.

Cited by 32 publications

References 56 publications

Something Overlooked? How experts in change detection use visual saliency

Something Overlooked? How experts in change detection use visual saliency

How Are the Locations of Objects in the Environment Represented in Memory?

Effects of Geometry, Landmarks and Orientation Strategies in the ‘Drop-Off’ Orientation Task

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About