No advantage for remembering horizontal over vertical spatial locations learned from a single viewpoint

Abstract

Previous behavioral and neurophysiological research has shown better memory for horizontal than for vertical locations. In these studies, participants navigated toward these locations. In the present study we investigated whether the orientation of the spatial plane per se was responsible for this difference. We thus had participants learn locations visually from a single perspective and retrieve them from multiple viewpoints. In three experiments, participants studied colored tags on a horizontally or vertically oriented board within a virtual room and recalled these locations with different layout orientations (Exp. 1) or from different room-based perspectives (Exps. 2 and 3). All experiments revealed evidence for equal recall performance in horizontal and vertical memory. In addition, the patterns for recall from different test orientations were rather similar. Consequently, our results suggest that memory is qualitatively similar for both vertical and horizontal two-dimensional locations, given that these locations are learned from a single viewpoint. Thus, prior differences in spatial memory may have originated from the structure of the space or the fact that participants navigated through it. Additionally, the strong performance advantages for perspective shifts (Exps. 2 and 3) relative to layout rotations (Exp. 1) suggest that configurational judgments are not only based on memory of the relations between target objects, but also encompass the relations between target objects and the surrounding room—for example, in the form of a memorized view.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.3758/s13421-017-0753-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Body-relative horizontal–vertical anisotropy in human representations of traveled distances

“…This horizontal advantage is in line with the findings in multi-floor buildings. However, studies on memory for spatial locations in open spaces reported isotropic representations (Hinterecker et al 2018 ; Kim et al 2017 ). How could this discrepancy be explained?…”

“…First, neither Hinterecker et al ( 2018 ) nor Kim et al ( 2017 ) had participants encode the spatial information via real physical self-movement. Hinterecker et al ( 2018 ), had participants learn a spatial layout visually and without any locomotion. Kim and colleagues used visual motion in a virtual reality setup.…”

“…Second, learning a regular lattice structure (Kim et al 2017 ) or a grid of target objects (Hinterecker et al 2018 ) might allow for categorical encoding (Huttenlocher et al 1991 ). Specifically, participants in both of these studies might have encoded spatial information categorically along levels, rows, and columns.…”

“…Results showed similar memory accuracy and hippocampus-activity patterns for horizontal (front–back–left–right) and vertical (up–down) location representations (Kim et al 2017 ). Second, equal horizontal versus vertical memory accuracy was also found in a setup in which participants learned locations of objects on a table (horizontal) and on an upright board (vertical) from a single viewpoint but recalled them from varying test orientations within the room (Hinterecker et al 2018 ). Contrarily to these isotropy findings, a study in which participants were moved through an open space and were required to point to the origin of travels showed anisotropies that depend on the involved spatial plane (Barnett-Cowan et al 2012 ).…”

Walking in the cities without ground, how 3d complex network volumetrics improve analysis

“…Lu and Ye's wayfinding study (2017), in agreement with Berthoz & Thibault (2013;Thibault, et al, 2013), suggested that in multi-level buildings, people can integrate volumetric cognitive map and that the previous findings might be limited by the specific wayfinding task protocol used. To contribute to this debate meaningfully (Hinterecker, et al, 2018;Grieves, et al, 2020) and b. 3D medial center path encoding and 3D angular analysis principle (Cooper & Chiaradia, 2020).…”