title: Spatial knowledge of geographical globes: evidence of vertical alignment effects.
abstract: This study investigated human spatial memory of geographical globes. In two experiments, participants studied locations presented on a three-dimensional globe. Subsequently, participants' knowledge of the locations was tested employing two types of pointing task. Directional judgments from imagined locations on the globe were performed either vertically through the ground (as if digging a straight tunnel between the locations) or horizontally along the surface of the globe (the shortest distance for an aircraft to fly to a given destination). In the vertical pointing task, judgments originating from imagined locations in the upper hemisphere were superior by comparison with those originating from imagined locations in the lower hemisphere. Performance in the horizontal pointing task was more variable, with a tendency for superior judgments originating from imagined locations in the lower hemisphere. The results provide evidence of a novel alignment effect involving vertical judgments.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia. michael.tlauka@flinders.edu.au
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tlauka
authors.forename: Aaron
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Drummond
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Leffers
mesh_terms: D004215:Distance Perception; D005843:Geography / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D007600:Judgment; D008377:Maps as Topic; D008568:Memory; D009949:Orientation; D013028:Space Perception; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis