| This project empirically tested a new neural network model that integrates Spatial Planning and Memory with Linguistic Processes (SPAM-Ling). SPAM-Ling builds on the Dynamic Field Theory (DFT) of spatial working memory (Spencer, Simmering, Schutte, & Schoner, in press) by incorporating a semantic network representing a set of spatial prepositions, specifically Above, Below, Left, and Right. According to this model, the real-time processes underlying spatial language also underlie spatial working memory behaviors. At the broadest theoretical level, SPAM-Ling thus proposes a direct, real-time link between linguistic processes and the sensori-motor processes underlying non-linguistic spatial cognition.;This model is tested by generating three qualitative predictions of the model and testing these predictions in three experiments described here. Experiment 1 tests the contribution of varying perceptual structure in both spatial language and spatial working memory. According to SPAM-Ling, providing additional perceptual structure in the task space should stabilize target location memory over delay. Results were consistent with SPAM-Ling's proposed integration of spatial language and spatial working memory, showing that additional perceptual structure not only reduced delay-dependent memory errors but also reduced delay-dependent changes in spatial language. Experiment 2 tested the role of longer-term spatial memory in both spatial language and spatial working memory. According to the model, feedback provided after a memory location response leaves memory traces in longer-term memory. Biasing this feedback either towards the vertical axis of the task space or away from the vertical axis should therefore leave biased traces in the longer term memory as well. Consistent with SPAM-Ling's proposed integration, spatial language and spatial working memory performance both exhibited responses biased towards these longer-term memory traces. Finally, Experiment 3 tested the proposed linkage between the spatial semantic network and spatial working memory.;Results were again consistent with the model, showing that activation of spatial terms (e.g. "Above") systematically biased location memories towards a given word's prototypical location. Thus, SPAM-Ling offers a critical first step towards an integrated, process-based account of spatial language and its relationship with non-linguistic spatial cognition. |
