Abstracts 2005 - The Psychonomic Society

Friday Noon Posters 2008–2013
tone stimuli. Exponents were measured by assessing the errors made
in identifying the intensity of tones. Participants were required to
identify the intensity of tones to the nearest decibel, given that the intensity
would lie in a specified range (e.g., 1–30 dB or 1–70 dB). A
listener’s error in identification (standard deviation in decibels) tends
to increase as the stimulus range is increased, and the exponent for
loudness is given by the slope of the resulting regression line. We
measured exponents in this manner over six auditory frequencies between
125 Hz and 8 kHz, and found that the exponents for females
exceeded that for males, implying for the former a greater sensitivity
to changes in loudness. Our exponents were obtained from a measure
of sensory memory and are indicative of loudness processing.
(2008)
Spatialized Sound Localization and Body Roll Tilt. JEAN-MICHEL
PRIEUR, Peugeot-PSA/DRIA, LIONEL PELLIEUX, IMASSA-SC,
CHRISTOPHE BOURDIN, UMR 6152 Mouvement et Perception, &
PATRICK M. B. SANDOR, IMASSA-SC (sponsored by Cheryl Frenck-
Mestre)—Body roll tilt is controversially described as promoting a lateral
shift in the perceived position of sound sources, depending on
designation condition. After the whole body had been laterally and infraliminarly
tilted in complete darkness (±15º maximum), the localization
of a single source was explored. Spatialized sound sources
were generated by earphones as coming from the frontal space (±30º
azimuth; ±20º elevation in a head-centered spherical grid, 10º steps).
The participant indicated the perceived sound origin verbally (which
quadrant of the frontal space) or by hand pointing; where the righthand
finger was directed toward the source, that position relative to
the head was calculated. In azimuth, tilting position affects verbal designation
of central sources (0º), but not of lateral sources. In elevation,
sources were globally shifted up, independently of tilt. Tilt influenced
the pointing responses—the azimuth component by a
systematic lateral shift and the elevation component by a systematic
overestimation.
• SPATIAL COGNITION •
(2009)
Navigation and Memory of a Real and Virtual Maze. JOHN G.
JEWELL, St. Joseph’s University—Virtual environments are being increasingly
used for training purposes because of their flexibility and
cost effectiveness. The ecological validity of virtual environments is
often called into question. The present investigation was an attempt
to examine whether naive participants would construct similar spatial
representations for a real and a virtual maze. Participants were asked
to navigate through a real maze, cut into a cornfield, or an identical
virtual maze. After reaching the end of the maze, participants were
asked to reproduce, using paper and pencil, the path that had brought
them to the end of the maze. No differences were found between the
spatial representations for the real and the virtual mazes. Memory of
the legs of the maze leading to a successful exit showed a serial position
effect.
(2010)
Effects of Disorientation on Memory for Object Locations. JESSE
SARGENT, JOHN PHILBECK, & STEPHEN DOPKINS, George
Washington University—Human subjects learned the location of four
objects in a room and practiced pointing to them from the center of
the room. Subjects were then seated in a chair, blindfolded, and asked
to point to the objects, after each of a series of 70º or 200º turns in the
chair. Subjects started the series of turns either with intact orientation
or after having been disoriented as a consequence of multiple turns in
the chair. The results of several analyses suggested that the pointing
errors that occurred for the individual objects as a consequence of
subject disorientation were highly correlated with one another. That
is, rather than “drifting” from their true locations in random, unrelated
directions as subjects lost orientation, objects appeared to “drift” as
an ensemble. This is taken as evidence that object-to-object (allocen-
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tric) information about objects is stored in memory and used in pointing
responses.
(2011)
The Effects of Long-Term Practice and Training on Mental Rotation.
MELISSA S. TERLECKI, Cabrini College, & NORA S.
NEWCOMBE, Temple University—A series of studies investigated
the effects of long-term practice and training on mental rotation. Longitudinal
assessments of MRT performance were conducted for men
and women, people with greater or lesser levels of spatial experience,
and people randomly assigned to 12 h of videogame training or a control
task. SEM analyses showed that, although males and people with
the greater levels of spatial experience had greater initial mental rotation
ability than did females and people with lesser levels of spatial
experience, over time, females and people with lesser levels of spatial
experience demonstrated greater rates of mental rotation growth.
However, growth curves between males and females and between people
with varying levels of spatial experience did not converge in the
course of the study. People with and without videogame training did
not differ in initial mental rotation ability, although in the training
study, people assigned to videogame experience did show an advantage
in rate of mental rotation growth over time (yet again, no convergence
between groups). The results suggest that mental rotation
performance is profoundly affected by experience; the practice and
training effects were much larger than the gender effects. Implications
for ceiling effects, asymptotic performance, and future directions are
discussed.
(2012)
Viewer Rotation Is Not Always Easier Than Object Rotation.
MADELEINE M. KEEHNER & MARY HEGARTY, University of
California, Santa Barbara—In three experiments, participants viewed
a display showing a circular table with an object on top. An arrow indicated
the direction and distance of a rotation they were to imagine.
There were two conditions: mental rotation (MR; imagine that the
table rotates) and perspective taking (PT; imagine that you move
around the table). In Experiment 1, participants were asked, “Will the
table look like this (after the rotation)?” MR was both faster and more
accurate than PT. However, the images (before and after rotation) were
presented sequentially. To exclude working memory load, in Experiment
2 the images were presented simultaneously, and the superiority
of MR was replicated. In Experiment 3, we asked, “Will the object be
on your left or your right?” Here, the patterns of data were reversed
(PT was easier than MR). These findings challenge previous claims
that perspective taking (viewer rotation) is consistently easier than
mental rotation (object rotation).
(2013)
Is Active Control Better Than Passive Viewing? It Depends on
What You See. MADELEINE M. KEEHNER, CHERYL A. COHEN,
DANIEL R. MONTELLO, PETER KHOOSHABEH, & MARY
HEGARTY, University of California, Santa Barbara—Participants
viewed a fictitious 3-D structure in both printed 2-D images and a 3-D
computer visualization. A vertical or horizontal line on the images indicated
where they should imagine that the structure had been sliced.
The task was to draw the resulting cross-section. In Experiment 1, active
participants (who were allowed to control the visualization with
a mouse interface) performed significantly better than passive participants
(who viewed the object rotating continuously). Spatial ability
strongly predicted performance, especially in the passive condition.
In Experiment 2, we controlled the visual input, using a yoked pairs
design. Active participants manipulated the visualization using an intuitive
interface, and their rotations were later played back to passive
participants. Under these conditions, there was no difference between
the groups, and the contribution of spatial ability was attenuated. A
third experiment explored the hypothesis that performance depends
on access to informative views of the object rather than on active control
per se.