Remembering Places in Space: A Human Analog Study of the Morris Water Maze

Abstract

Abstract. We conducted a human analog study of the Morris Water Maze, with individuals indicating a remembered location in a 3 m diameter arena over different intervals of time and with different memory loads. The primary focus of the study was to test a theory of how varying cue location and number of cues affects memory for spatial location. As expected, memory performance as measured by proximity to the actual location was negatively affected by increasing memory load and delay interval and decreasing number of cues. As memory performance decremented, bias effects increased and were in accordance with the cue-based memory model described by Fitting, Wedell and Allen (2005). Specifically, remembered locations were biased toward the nearest cue and error decreased with more cues. These results demonstrate that localization processes that apply to small two-dimensional task fields may generalize to a larger traversable task field.

From maps to navigation: The role of cues in finding locations in a virtual environment

“…1 (Fitting, Wedell, & Allen, 2007a, b, 2008aHuttenlocher, Hedges, Corrigan, & Crawford, 2004;Huttenlocher et al, 1991;Spencer & Hund, 2002;Verbeek & Spetch, 2008;Wedell et al, 2007). Results from this research are generally consistent with the category adjustment model of spatial memory proposed by Huttenlocher and colleagues (Huttenlocher et al, 1991), according to which spatial memory is encoded at two levels:…”

“…Our primary experimental manipulation was the location of cues within the environment. We examined whether cues are used to encode memory for location when one navigates through an environment from an egocentric perspective in the same way as when one views a small-scale representation (such as a map) from an allocentric point of view (Fitting, Wedell, & Allen, 2007a, b, 2008a.…”

“…Using the basic dot-in-circle task, Fitting and colleagues found that cues surrounding the task field were largely ignored as long as the task field remained stationary and memory was not overly taxed. When participants had to remember multiple targets or if the task field was rotated on a majority of trials, categories were centered on salient cues, rather than reflecting the four-quadrant division (Fitting, Wedell, & Allen, 2007a, b, 2008a.…”

Memory for spatial location: Cue effects as a function of field rotation

“…In future research, we hope to obtain more conclusive evidence with humans using these different approaches. However, it should be noted that a recent human analogue study of the Morris water maze supports the idea that cues may be used as prototypes in a vista space, with memory for locations being biased toward the nearest available environmental cue and the magnitude of bias being a function of distance to the available cue (Fitting, Allen, & Wedell, 2008). of data clearly deviated from the fixed-quadrants representation typically observed in this task (Huttenlocher et al, 1991).…”

Working Memory in Wayfinding—A Dual Task Experiment in a Virtual City

“…Encoding spatial information verbally in this way can account for many biases found in spatial memory. For example, it may account for biases in the memory of locations (Fitting, Allen, & Wedell, 2007;Huttenlocher et al, 1991); biases in the angles of intersections (e.g., Tversky, 1981); and it may mediate grouping effects due to political, semantic, or conceptual similarities (e.g., Carbon & Leder, 2005;Hirtle & Mascolo, 1986).…”