Perspective taking in referring to objectsbehindversusin front ofan observer: Frames of reference, intraindividual consistency, and response latencies

Abstract

Speakers of English and German typically adopt the reflection variant of the relative frame of reference (FoR) in order to describe how nonoriented objects that are located in front of them are related to one another. Little is known, however, about how they proceed in dorsal settings, with objects located in their back. In this article, we explore the turn hypothesis, which assumes a (mental) 180° turn of the observer to face the objects, converting the dorsal into a frontal situation, so that the preferred FoR variant for frontal settings can be applied. To elicit spatial references, we used photographs that showed an observer and two objects either in the observer's visual field (frontal condition) or in the observer's back (dorsal condition). The observer was looking either in the same direction as the referencing individual (aligned perspectives) or in the opposite direction (vis-à-vis perspective). Data from two experiments show that while participants do adopt the observer's perspective, their references in dorsal settings are incompatible with the turn hypothesis. Analyses of response latencies indicate additional cognitive costs for establishing a FoR for the very first item in the dorsal condition as compared to the frontal condition, but fast adaption for subsequent items, and high intraindividual consistency in FoR choice in both conditions. Maintaining the assumption that references in dorsal settings should be compatible with the variant of the relative FoR adopted in frontal settings, participants' references can be explained by assuming a backward projection that gets by without a (mental) turn of the observer.

Turn around to have a look? Spatial referencing in dorsal vs. frontal settings in cross-linguistic comparison

“…Here, the descriptive results replicate the findings for the relative FoR variants obtained with other methods: a preference for reflection among German speakers (e.g., Grabowski and Miller, 2000; Beller et al, in press), mainly reflection, but also translation among English speakers (e.g., Hill, 1982; Grabowski and Miller, 2000), and a preference for translation among Tongan speakers (Bennardo, 2000). We therefore believe that our 2D sketches did not induce substantial biases.…”

“…Second, most of their responses can be interpreted as being consistent with the preferences we observed in the frontal settings, as argued in this section. And, finally, in a recent study with German participants we were able to replicate the results for both frontal and dorsal settings with perspectival photographs as stimuli (Beller et al, in press). …”

“…What would be more conclusive, however, is a within-subject assessment of references for frontal and dorsal configurations. This would allow one to directly relate frontal and dorsal strategies for each individual (for an application and critical evaluation of this strategy, see Beller et al, in press). …”

BeingIn FrontIs Good—But Where IsIn Front? Preferences for Spatial Referencing Affect Evaluation

“…In addition, an observer with the same looking direction as that of the participant was inserted to emphasize perspective‐taking (cf. Beller, Bohlen, Hüther, & Bender, 2016; Beller et al, 2015). Apart from this, material and (overall) procedure were the same as in Study 1.…”

Reference frames in spatial communication for navigation and sports: An empirical study in ultimate frisbee players

“…More recent work on individual differences shows within-person stability of reference frames in peripersonal space (defined as the space immediately surrounding an individual; Rizzolatti, Fadiga, Fogassi, & Gallese, 1997). Using schematic diagrams of people and nonoriented objects (like squares and circles), Beller, Bohlen, Hüther, and Bender (2016) showed that German speakers generally prefer to reflect their frame of referencethat is, they adopt the orientation of a viewer in the scene, and report the position of objects relative to the view of the viewer. Moreover, measured across trials and over time, people are consistent, maintaining their reference frame preference in a simple schematic task.…”