title: Orientation specificity and spatial updating of memories for layouts.
abstract: This article examines the degree to which knowledge about the body's orientation affects transformations in spatial memory and whether memories are accessed with a preferred orientation. Participants learned large paths from a single viewpoint and were later asked to make judgments of relative directions from imagined positions on the path. Experiments 1 and 2 contribute to the emerging consensus that memories for large layouts are orientation specific, suggesting that prior findings to the contrary may not have fully accounted for latencies. Experiments 2 and 3 show that knowledge of one's orientation can create a preferred direction in spatial memory that is different from the learned orientation. Results further suggest that spatial updating may not be as automatic as previously thought.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. wallerda@muohio.edu
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Waller
authors.forename: Daniel R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Montello
authors.forename: Anthony E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hegarty
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D011601:Psychophysics; D013028:Space Perception