Intrinsic Reference System in Implicit Spatial Learning: Evidence from Contextual Cueing Paradigm

Abstract

It has been proposed (Mou etal, 2004) that for memory of a scene, the structure of the object layout or environment could be used to form a reference direction which aids spatial learning. Here we evaluated the effect of various indicators of reference direction in facilitating implicit spatial learning. We used a contextual cueing paradigm where repeated configurations of random elements induce faster search performance than novel configurations. We examined search behavior in a computer rendered illustrations of a 3D scene. Human participants viewed a scene consisted of an array of either different "stools" or different "chairs" randomly positioned on the ground and in their normal upright orientation. The stools were made of various circular structures so that the side view of the stool appeared to be the same from different viewpoints. The chairs were created by adding a "back" portion on top of the stools. The back of chairs provided orientation information of the objects and the scene (with coherent orientations for all the chairs). Observers searched for and identified a target positioned on the seat of a stool or a chair. The learning effect was indicated by (1) the magnitude of contextual cueing effect in a given block and (2) number of learning blocks needed to reach significant difference between repeated and novel scene. We found greater learning effect (i) when the orientation of all chairs was coherent compared to random (ii) for the chair scene with coherent orientation compared to the stool scene. However greater learning effect was not found when we introduced environmental cue for reference direction (parallel lines on the floor) to the stool scene. The results indicted that implicit spatial learning can be facilitated by the availability of intrinsic axis provided by individual objects in the scene but not from external environmental indicators.

Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2014