Not all memories are the same: Situational context influences spatial recall within one’s city of residency

Abstract

Reference frames in spatial memory encoding have been examined intensively in recent years. However, their importance for recall has received considerably less attention. In the present study, passersby used tags to arrange a configuration map of prominent city center landmarks. It has been shown that such configurational knowledge is memorized within a north-up reference frame. However, participants adjusted their maps according to their body orientations. For example, when participants faced south, the maps were likely to face south-up. Participants also constructed maps along their location perspective-that is, the self-target direction. If, for instance, they were east of the represented area, their maps were oriented west-up. If the location perspective and body orientation were in opposite directions (i.e., if participants faced away from the city center), participants relied on location perspective. The results indicate that reference frames in spatial recall depend on the current situation rather than on the organization in long-term memory. These results cannot be explained by activation spread within a view graph, which had been used to explain similar results in the recall of city plazas. However, the results are consistent with forming and transforming a spatial image of nonvisible city locations from the current location. Furthermore, prior research has almost exclusively focused on body-and environment-based reference frames. The strong influence of location perspective in an everyday navigational context indicates that such a reference frame should be considered more often when examining human spatial cognition.

The effect of navigation method and visual display on distance perception in a large-scale virtual building

“…This finding is somewhat consistent with previous literature on representational flexibility in that navigators acquire allocentric and egocentric spatial knowledge in parallel (Brunyé et al 2008 ; Iglói et al 2009 ). Although all participants learned the environment from the same perspective, individual differences and different learning goals might determine that participants performed differently at egocentric and allocentric spatial knowledge (Meilinger et al 2016 ; Pazzaglia and Taylor 2007 ). This finding was also likely due to the specific measure chosen to assess environmental distance.…”

“…Thus, perceived and traversed distance are egocentric, whereas environmental distance is allocentric. Previous literature on representational flexibility has found that navigators acquire allocentric and egocentric spatial knowledge in parallel (Brunyé et al 2008 ; Iglói et al 2009 ) and that both learning perspective and learning goal (as well as individual differences) influence cognitive map development (Meilinger et al 2016 ; Pazzaglia and Taylor 2007 ). In an outdoor setting, Ishikawa and Montello ( 2006 ) found that, after participants built more accurate metric knowledge of the space by integrating separately learned routes, traversed distance estimates were not improved.…”

Presence and Perceived Body Orientation Affect the Recall of Out-of-Sight Places in an Immersive Sketching Experiment

“…In addition to these dependencies, the bodily orientation of the subjects might also play a role. This was demonstrated by Meilinger, Frankenstein, Simon, Bülthoff, and Bresciani (2016) using a building task instead if freely sketched maps. Subjects were given a set of cards naming popular locations around town and asked to rebuild the configuration.…”

“…The study confirms the position dependence of the recall orientation and additionally demonstrates an effect of body orientation. Note, however, that the Meilinger et al (2016) study uses landmark buildings in a larger area, not views of a single city square. The building task was transferred to a virtual environment by Le Vinh, Meert, and Mallot (2020), again with the reconstruction of a specific target square as a task.…”

ASmartModel of Imaginal Perspective Taking

“…In all of the situations described above, perceptually available information is not sufficient, but has to be augmented by spatial information from working and long‐term memory to achieve one's goal. Accordingly, the characteristics of IPT performance indicate characteristics of the involved processes and representations, and a considerable body of previous research has employed IPT to investigate the aspects of spatial memory (e.g., Brockmole & Wang, 2003; Farrell & Robertson, 1998; Giudice, Klatzky, & Loomis, 2009; Kelly, Siegel, Sjolund, & Avraamides, 2018; Meilinger, Frankenstein, Simon, Bülthoff, & Bresciani, 2016; Newman, Cox, & McNamara, 2021; Presson & Montello, 1994; Puls & May, 2020; Riecke & McNamara, 2017; Rieser, 1989; Sholl, 2001; Waller & Hodgson, 2006; Warren, Rothman, Schnapp, & Ericson, 2017).…”