Sensorimotor alignment effects in learning and novel environments

The presence of sensorimotor effects in a spatial memory task was investigated in four experiments using immersive virtual reality. Participants learned the locations of eight objects arranged around a room (learning room) and later made spatial judgments from memory about object locations from imagined perspectives aligned or misaligned with their body orientation at test. Prior to testing, participants either stayed in the learning room or walked into a neighboring room (novel room). Experiment 1 provided evidence of a sensorimotor alignment effect (perspectives aligned with the participant facing direction at test were easier to imagine than misaligned perspectives), but this was only true when testing occurred in the learning room. Additionally, there was a strong memory alignment effect (the initially viewed perspective during learning was easier to imagine than other perspectives, regardless of the participant facing direction at test) when testing occurred in either environment. In Experiment 2 the sensorimotor alignment effect returned when participants walked back into the learning room after prior testing in the novel room. Experiment 3 showed that when participants were instructed to imagine the objects surrounding them prior to testing, strong sensorimotor alignment effects occurred even in the novel room. In Experiment 4, the similarity of the test environment with the learning environment was manipulated to determine the critical stimulus for the activation and deactivation of sensorimotor effects. The visual test environment and the spatial location of the test environment (defined through spatial updating) could either be different from or the same as the learning environment. Visual similarity with the learning environment was sufficient to cause a sensorimotor alignment effect, whereas the location of the test environment was not.