Constructing representations of spatial location from briefly presented displays

Spatial memory and reasoning rely heavily on allocentric (often map-like) representations of spatial knowledge. While research has documented many ways in which spatial information can be represented in allocentric form, less is known about how such representations are constructed. For example: Are the very early, pre-attentive parts of the process hard-wired, or can they be altered by experience? We addressed this issue by presenting sub-saccadic (53 ms) masked stimuli consisting of a target among one to three reference features. We then shifted the location of the feature array, and asked participants to identify the target’s new relative location. Experience altered feature processing even when the display duration was too short to allow attention re-allocation. The results demonstrate the importance of early perceptual processes in the creation of representations of spatial location, and the malleability of those processes based on experience and expectations.