Graphics in written directions: Appreciated by readers but not writers

This series of studies investigated the ability of literate adults to exploit communications options that are available to writers but have no counterpart in speech. Specifically it examined people's use of sketches when giving written directions to help a stranger cross town. When writing an informal letter to a friend most directions were given in prose paragraph style (Experiment 1). Almost no-one included a sketch, even if given a street map as an aid. Yet most subjects could draw adequate sketch maps (Experiment 2), and everyone said yes when asked whether they would include a sketch in a letter. So the previous choices were not constrained either by graphic skill or by judgements concerning the appropriateness of a sketch, When people were asked to 'design' the back page of a leaflet they still did not include a sketch (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 showed that any bias in the instructions was towards rather than against the use of sketches. The need to generate the sketch was removed in Experiment 5 where subjects composed the leaflet page from pre-formed sections that included alternative routes in both words and diagrams. Nearly all subjects now included a sketch in their directions. In case subjects previously, in haste, had not considered the possibility of including a sketch map, they were made aware of the drawing option by rating the usability of route information in a variety of communication styles immediately before writing their own directions (Experiment 6). People rated directions that included diagrams as significantly more usable, but still most subjects did not include a sketch in the directions they gave. So the communication styles that readers recognized as successful were not determining their choices as writers. It is suggested that, when giving written directions, inexperienced writers rely too heavily on how they would respond as speakers.     

Memory for the spatial layout of the everyday physical environment: Differential rates of acquisition of different types of information

The hypothesis that the relative locations of the landmarks in a town is not accurately remembered before the paths between them have been learned was refuted in the present study showing that the reverse may in fact be true. In two of the three experiments carried out, undergraduates were found to give accurate estimates of the relative directions to different landmarks in an average-sized Swedish town (Umeå with about 80 000 residents), even if the subjects had been living there no more than two to four months. However, for some reason which could not be disentangled relative distance estimates turned out to be less accurate. In the third experiment, undergraduates who had lived for two months in the town by contrast hardly remembered which places among designated ones they would pass by the most direct path, whereas those who had been one year longer in the town were much better although not perfect. Finally, no sex differences were observed and there were no important differences depending on whether memory was tested for the central area of the town or for the whole town including the outskirts.     

Inconsistency in spatial knowledge

Two experiments examined whether spatial information judged from cognitive maps contains the functional euclidean properties of real maps. In Experiment 1, the six directions between sets of threetriad locations in a town were judged from memory. The angle formed by the two judged directions from a location to the other two locations in a triad was derived. The three derived angles of a triad were then summed. The derived angles were found to be biased toward 90 deg. The sum of the three derived angles of a triad also exceeded 180 deg, which violates the euclidean properties of real maps. In Experiment 2, subjects judged the direction between pairs of American cities in both directions. The judged directions were found to be consistently nonreversible, which is contrary to the properties of euclidean geometry. The study suggests that information judged from cognitive maps can contain internally inconsistent spatial properties, and the results are discussed in terms of current theories of spatial representation.     

Geographical slant facilitates navigation and orientation in virtual environments

Theoretical considerations and earlier experimental findings indicate that traveling over slanted terrain can lead to an enrichment of the perceived spatial cues relevant for navigation. We investigated the proposed facilitation of a uniformly slanted environment on navigation and orientation performance with a virtual environment presented on a large 180 degrees screen, using as material a virtual town with eight places and twenty-four landmarks. In the control condition, this town was placed on a flat surface; in the two experimental conditions, the town was placed on a slope with a uniform angle of 4 degrees. Pedaling on a bicycle simulator, participants first explored the environment, then solved navigation tasks, pointed from various positions to distant landmarks, judged the relative elevation of pairs of distant landmarks from memory, and finally drew a sketch map of the environment. In comparison to the control condition, the number of navigation errors was significantly lower in the slanted conditions, and the deviations in the pointings to distant landmarks were massively reduced. Participants from the slant conditions also showed good knowledge of the relative elevations of pairs of distant locations. However, no differences in map-drawing quality were found. The results lend additional support to the proposition that our spatial knowledge, which is used in navigation and orientation, contains vertical information.     

Children's cognitive maps of large-scale spaces: Effects of exploration,direction, and repeated experience

Kindergarteners and third graders (mean ages 5–10 and 8–9 years) repeatedly encountered a model town and then constructed the town from memory. In Experiment 1, the effect of different types of exploration on the development of a cognitive map was assessed. Children who were directed to walk within the town placed buildings more accurately than children who had walked along the town's perimeter. Children who walked within the town and were directed to the spatial relationships among buildings had the highest placement accuracy. Third graders were more accurate than kindergarteners across the three types of exploration. In Experiment 2, children were permitted to explore the town alone for an unlimited amount of time. Under these conditions, third graders still placed buildings more accurately than kindergarteners. A comparison of Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that children developed more accurate cognitive maps when motor activity and attention were directed by the experimenter as opposed to being directed by the child. Accuracy improved with repeated walks and constructions in both experiments, and the results of Experiment 3 suggested that constructing facilitated the development of the cognitive map as much as walking. It was concluded that third graders' cognitive maps were more accurate than kindergarteners' maps due to differences in the speed of acquisition and storage of spatial information.     

The Benny Hill effect: Switching cognitive programmes underlying subjective estimations of the outcomes of bargains concerning distributions of rewards

The pun of a sketch from the Benny Hill show was related to a switch of cognitive in formation processing programmes underlying the interpretation of the scene represented. The audience would be biased to interpret it following a cognitive programme anchored on the constructs self and other (SO-programme), while Benny Hill makes a statement that would impose a cognitive programme anchored on constructs associated with the third pronominal person (3P-programme). In an experiment it was attempted to make subjects to switch from SO- to 3P-programmes (Benny Hill effect) when they were making subjective estimations of outcomes of bargains concerning distributions of rewards. The hypothesis was confirmed that the 3P-programme was activated by providing additional in formation pertaining to substantiate the stimulus persons in such a way as to make them stand out as anchors for the processing of the in formation. However, the data showed also that the mere substantiation of stimulus persons was not yet sufficient to produce the given shift of cognitive programmes. The results are discussed in the light of theories concerning fairness, social values and allocation rules.     

Learning your way around town: how virtual taxicab drivers learn to use both layout and landmark information

By having subjects drive a virtual taxicab through a computer-rendered town, we examined how landmark and layout information interact during spatial navigation. Subject-drivers searched for passengers, and then attempted to take the most efficient route to the requested destinations (one of several target stores). Experiment 1 demonstrated that subjects rapidly learn to find direct paths from random pickup locations to target stores. Experiment 2 varied the degree to which landmark and layout cues were preserved across two successively learned towns. When spatial layout was preserved, transfer was low if only target stores were altered, and high if both target stores and surrounding buildings were altered, even though in the latter case all local views were changed. This suggests that subjects can rapidly acquire a survey representation based on the spatial layout of the town and independent of local views, but that subjects will rely on local views when present, and are harmed when associations between previously learned landmarks are disrupted. We propose that spatial navigation reflects a hierarchical system in which either layout or landmark information is sufficient for orienting and wayfinding; however, when these types of cues conflict, landmarks are preferentially used.     

Orientation in cognitive maps

In 14 experiments, subjects had to “point to” surrounding environmental locations (targets) while imagining themselves in a particular spot facing in various directions (orientations). The spatial information was either committed to memory (cognitive maps) or directly presented on each trial in the visual or tactile modality. Reaction times (RT) indicated that orientation shifts were achieved through mental rotation in the visual task, but not in the cognitive map or tactile tasks. Further, in the latter two tasks targets were located most quickly when they were adjacent to or opposite the imagined orientation. Several explanations of this finding were tested. Various aspects of the data suggest that cognitive maps are not strictly holistic, but consist of orientation-specific representations, and—at least in part—of relational propositions specific to object pairs.     

How to separate coordinate and categorical spatial relation components in integrated spatial representations: A new methodology for analysing sketch maps

Spatial relations between landmarks can be represented by means of categories and coordinates. In the present research, this paradigm was applied to sketch maps based on information acquired in goal-directed behaviour of exploration of a university campus area. The first aim was to investigate whether categorical and coordinate information can be considered conceptually independent in sketch maps. The second aim was to assess which kind of distance measure served better to represent coordinate information in the present case study, and finally to assess the factorial structure of coordinate and categorical data. Analytic methodology as well as statistical analysis were found to confirm that separating coordinate and categorical components was formally as well as empirically appropriate. A series of confirmatory factor analyses showed the best fit for the model with two correlated components, as well as an acceptable reliability of measures emerged. The two components were moderately correlated. Moreover, the adoption of Manhattan distance seemed to be the most effective method to represent coordinate spatial relations in spatial sketch maps of areas acquired through navigation.     

目标预知对路径整合的影响

本研究采用头盔式虚拟现实与返回起点或路标的路径完成任务, 通过指导语来调控被试对于返回位置的预知, 检验目标预知对人类路径整合的影响。实验结果表明, 对于返回起点这一目标的预知可以使被试有效地忽略由于路标出现或路标数量增加而导致的干扰, 而对于返回路标这一目标的预知程度越高, 可以促使被试做出更准确的反应。这样的结果体现了目标预知作为一种非感知觉因素对于人类路径整合的影响, 也体现了人类路径整合的策略性和灵活性。     

T. V. Moore’s (1939)Cognitive Psychology

Thomas Verner Moore published a book calledCognitive Psychology in 1939, almost 30 years before Neisser’s (1967) more familiar and far more influential work. Although it covers most of the standard topics found in current cognitive psychology textbooks, and even anticipated several current trends, Moore’s text is not cited by any of the major histories of the “cognitive revolution” or any current cognitive textbook. We provide a brief sketch of Moore’s academic life and summarize several of his papers that are still cited. After describing the psychologies prevalent in 1939, we compare Moore’s text with two contemporary works, Woodworth (1938) and McGeoch (1942). We conclude by comparing the older text with Neisser’s and by offering several reasons why the book is virtually unknown.     

The influence of semantic relationships on older adult map memory

Research has shown that nonspatial features, including semantic categories, can bias younger adults' spatial location memory. For example, semantically related information is remembered as being closer in space than semantically unrelated information (Hirtle & Mascolo, 1986). These findings suggest that verbal information is concurrently encoded with spatial information and influences younger adults' spatial information retrieval. The present study explored whether older adults have a similar dependency between verbal and spatial information. In Experiment 1, older and younger adults learned maps depicting semantically categorizable landmarks. After learning, participants completed landmark free recall and distance estimation tasks. Younger adults recalled more landmarks from semantically organized maps compared with older adults. In addition, younger adults were more likely to underestimate the distance between semantically related landmarks than were older adults. Experiment 2 examined whether supportive instructions would influence older adults' use of verbal information when learning maps. When given instructions that encouraged semantic feature use, older adults remembered more landmarks, were more likely to cluster landmarks semantically, and demonstrated biases in distance estimation based on semantic relationships. These findings suggest that verbal influences on spatial/map learning in older adults depends on explicit instructions or environmental support at encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Acquisition of locational information about reference points during blindfolded and sighted locomotion: Effects of a concurrent task and locomotion paths

Acquisition of cognitive maps (locational information about reference points) was investigated by requiring subjects to walk repeatedly according to paths consisting of 2, 4 and 6 linear segments. The starting point of each path was designated as a reference point, to which direction and distance were estimated by the subjects at the end of the path. Acquisition was indicated by the finding that variable errors and latencies decreased across blocks of trials. Interfering with central processing of locational information during locomotion by means of a concurrent task, while impairing orientation performance, did not seem to prevent acquisition. As suggested by an increase in latencies with the number of path segments, the subjects performing the concurrent task may have been able to infer and store the location of the starting point after walking. Finally, orientation performance did not improve for blindfolded subjects, probably because they were unable to use stored information about locations.     

Elimination of sex difference in direction giving

Past studies have shown that men provide more cardinal information and mileage estimates than women when describing routes learned from maps. In the current study, we examined whether this sex difference would persist if more legends were added to the maps. The participants looked at maps for 3 min and then wrote down directions from memory. Their usage of cardinal directions, mileage estimates, landmarks, and left–right directions was coded and analyzed. The results showed that men and women used cardinal directions equally for the 4-legend maps, whereas men used more cardinal directions than women for 1-legend maps as shown previously. Our results suggested that subtly drawing attention to cardinal directions successfully eliminated the sex difference in usage, although a different pattern was seen for mileage estimates. The underlying mechanisms are discussed.     

Flexible learning and use of multiple-landmark information by pigeons (Columba livia) in a touch screen-based goal searching task

Three touch screen-based experiments were conducted to investigate whether pigeons would learn to use configural information about a goal's location in relation to a multiple-landmark array. In Experiment 1, 4 pigeons (Columba livia) were trained to peck a computer monitor at a location that constituted the third vertex of a hypothetical triangle defined by 2 different landmarks. The landmarks appeared in 3 orientations during the training, and the pigeons' goal-searching ability easily transferred to the landmarks presented in 3 novel orientations. Each landmark was asymmetric, so we next examined whether the pigeons used (a) the small-scale, local orientation information that could be inferred from each landmark individually, or (b) the large-scale, configural information that could be inferred from the spatial arrangement of multiple landmarks taken as a whole. Even when each single landmark appeared by itself, the pigeons were able to locate the goal accurately, suggesting that the large-scale, configural information was not essential. However, when 1 landmark locally pointed to a location that was consistent with the triangular configuration and the other landmark locally pointed to a different location, the pigeons predominantly pecked at the configurally array-consistent location. These results suggest that the pigeons redundantly learned both the large-scale, configural strategy and the local, single-landmark strategy, but they mainly used the latter information, and used the former information solely to disambiguate conflicts when the 2 landmarks pointed toward different targets. Such flexible learning and use of redundant information may reflect the pigeons' adaptation to unstable wild environments during their evolutionary history.     

Use of contextual information in the formation of cognitive maps

To investigate the importance of context and presentation of serial order of information in the formation of cognitive maps, subjects were shown slides of pairwise relationships between items and then asked to construct a map. Two context conditions were used: a spatial condition in which the item pairs appeared in the same location on the screen as they would appear in a slide of the entire map and a nonspatial condition in which all item pairs appeared centered on the screen. Information order was either chain, in which new information could be immediately added to the representation, or nonchain, in which brief storage was required. The results indicated that both spatial context and chain order enhance performance. In addition, spatial information reduces the effect of serial order, perhaps by allowing subjects to relate new information to the context itself if they cannot relate it to previous information.