Four experiments investigated the use of cognitive strategies for encoding spatial location in visual figures. Subjects reproduced the position of a dot in a square figure that had distance markers placed along two sides. Subjects' responses were biased toward imaginary points of intersection formed by the distance markers when subjects responded from memory (Experiment 1) or while viewing the figures (Experiment 2). Dots located at an intersection point were reproduced more accurately than those located off an intersection. These findings demonstrate that empty regions of a figure can serve as subjective landmarks for spatial localization. In Experiment 3, dot relocation was found to be similarly distorted toward physical cross marks placed at the intersections of distance markers, supporting the landmark hypothesis. The attraction of dots to intersection points depends on the viewer employing a strategy of mentally projecting from distance markers to form imaginary intersections, which makes intersection points salient landmarks for coding location of nearby stimulus dots. In Experiment 4, attraction toward intersection points was observed only when subjects employed the projection strategy and not when instructed to use a different encoding strategy.Resume Quatre experiences ont inventorie l'utilisation de strategies cognitives pour le codage d'un emplacement spatial a l'interieur d'images. Les sujets ont reproduit l'emplacement d'un point a l'interieur d'une figure carree dont deux cotes portaient des reperes de distance. Lorsqu'ils repondaient de memoire (experience 1) ou qu'ils regardaient l'image (experience 2), les sujets avaient tendance a placer le point a l'intersection imaginaire des reperes de distance. Les points situes a l'intersection ont fait l'objet d'une reproduction plus fidele que les points situes en dehors de celle-ci. Ces resultats indiquent que les espaces vides d'une image peuvent servir de reperes subjectifs a des fins de localisation spatiale. Les resultats de Pexperience 3 ont montre une distorsion semblable de l'emplacement du point autour de croix visibles marquant l'intersection des reperes de distance, ce qui appuie l'hypothese des reperes. Pour que les sujets placent le point a l'intersection des reperes, ils leur faut recourir a une strategic qui leur permette, a
Encoding spatial location in a frame of reference is often biased by both perceptual and strategic factors. For example, tilt contrast occurs when a line presented in the frame of horizontal and vertical axes appears to be repulsed from the nearest axis, including the diagonal axis of symmetry, due to symmetry perception mechanisms. Research has demonstrated, however, that people can adopt particular viewing strategies that eliminate this effect. In Experiment 1, a similar tilt contrast effect was observed when subjects reproduced from memory the position of a single dot in this reference frame. It was hypothesized that this effect resulted from a combination of strategic and perceptual factors. Specifically, people employ an origin strategy, coding the location of the dot relative to the origin of the horizontal and vertical axes, thereby establishing a virtual line that appears tilted away from the axes due to the same perceptual processes affecting physically present lines. Two additional experiments support this hypothesis. In Experiment 2, no clear tilt contrast effect was observed in a perception condition, indicating that the tilt effect for dots cannot be accounted for by purely perceptual processes. In Experiment 3, the tilt contrast effect was found to be contingent upon the use of the origin strategy as opposed to a different strategy. The results demonstrate the importance of a viewer's strategy in determining the pattern of distortion observed in spatial encoding.
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