Perspective taking and systematic biases in object location memory

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to develop a novel task that allows for the quick assessment of spatial memory precision with minimal technical and training requirements. In this task, participants memorized the position of an object in a virtual room and then judged from a different perspective, whether the object has moved to the left or to the right. Results revealed that participants exhibited a systematic bias in their responses that we termed the reversed congruency effect. Specifically, they performed worse when the camera and the object moved in the same direction than when they moved in opposite directions. Notably, participants responded correctly in almost 100% of the incongruent trials, regardless of the distance by which the object was displaced. In Experiment 2, we showed that this effect cannot be explained by the movement of the object on the screen, but that it relates to the perspective shift and the movement of the object in the virtual world. We also showed that the presence of additional objects in the environment reduces the reversed congruency effect such that it no longer predicts performance. In Experiment 3, we showed that the reversed congruency effect is greater in older adults, suggesting that the quality of spatial memory and perspective-taking abilities are critical. Overall, our results suggest that this effect is driven by difficulties in the precise encoding of object locations in the environment and in understanding how perspective shifts affect the projected positions of the objects in the two-dimensional image.

Clockwise rotation of perspective view improves spatial recognition of complex environments in aging

“…As suggested by our results, and in line with previous studies 53 , 54 , aging is affecting performance in this task. Young adults had a higher percentage of hits compared to old adults.…”

“…When assessing the rotation direction (clockwise vs. anticlockwise), many studies used isolated items like letters 20 , 49 , 50 , Navon figures 51 , unfamiliar characters 52 or 2D lines 19 . Only a few studies used complex stimuli and conditions equivalent to the real world for an angular disparity effect 53 or a rotation bias 54 , but more research is needed to confirm if this is a tendency. Therefore, there is an inconsistency in the findings between simple and complex stimuli, which can be explained in light of the dissociation between the far and reaching space 55 .…”

The role of memory and perspective shifts in systematic biases during object location estimation

“…Underestimation of the perspective shift may lead participants to think that the camera movement was smaller than it was, yielding a bias in responses to the direction of the perspective shift. While in the current study we cannot distinguish between this explanation and the anchoring heuristic, we recently ran a follow-up experiment in which we systematically manipulated the way the camera moved during a perspective shift (Segen et al, 2021d). Results from this follow-up experiment provides support for the anchoring hypothesis and suggests that the influence of camera rotations is marginal.…”

Comparable performance on a spatial memory task in data collected in the lab and online

“…Based on our previous research [ 29 , 36 ], we propose that the bias in the direction of the perspective shift is driven by (1) uncertainty about the position of the object following the perspective shift, caused by difficulties in understanding or perceiving the perspective shifts, and (2) difficulties in precisely encoding the position of the object. We believe that the egocentric spatial relations between the observer and the target object during encoding act as an anchor (c.f.…”