title: Get out of the corner: Inhibition and the effect of location type and number on perceptron and human reorientation.
abstract: Spatial learning and navigation have frequently been investigated using a reorientation task paradigm (Cheng, Cognition, 23(2), 149-78, 1986). However, implementing this task typically involves making tacit assumptions about the nature of spatial information. This has important theoretical consequences: Theories of reorientation typically focus on angles at corners as geometric cues and ignore information present at noncorner locations. We present a neural network model of reorientation that challenges these assumptions and use this model to generate predictions in a novel variant of the reorientation task. We test these predictions against human behavior in a virtual environment. Networks and humans alike exhibit reorientation behavior even when goal locations are not present at corners. Our simulated and our experimental results suggest that angles are processed in a manner more similar to features, acting as a focal point for reorientation, and that the mechanisms governing reorientation behavior may be inhibitory rather than excitatory.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E9, Canada, bdupuis@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dupuis
authors.forename: Michael R W
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Dawson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003463:Cues; D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D009949:Orientation; D013028:Space Perception; D013037:Spatial Behavior