The Effect Of Object Position And Identity On Human Spatial Representation

The distinction between information about the identity of objects and about their spatial location has been of central importance to the cognitive neuroscience of visual perception and memory. The present paper addresses, using scene recognition task, solely on the basis of behavioral data. To Study the processing mechanisam or processing modules of object position and identity , Object position and identity has been dissociated using spatial memory tasks involving the reproduction of object layouts. We explored this dissociation through a spatial task involving changes in viewpoint. In two experiments, subjects were presented with an array of objects positioned on a circular table that either remained stationary or was rotated (50degree). In Exp 1, two sets of objects were used: identical cylindrical objects (glasses) or different cylindrical objects (varying heights, colors, and materials) Further, the number of objects presented was varied from four to seven. At the beginning of each trial, Ss viewed a layout of an array of objects positioned on the table for five seconds. Then Ss remained blindfolded for 10 seconds, during which one of objects was moved to a new position, and Ss were then required to view the table and determine which object was moved from the previous array of objects they had just viewedResults showed that for identical objects, Ss reaction time and error rate were similar regardless of the number of objects presented. This was particularly true for 5, 6, and 7 objects However, for different objects, Ss performance decreased as the number of objects increased. These results suggest that Ss tended to use serial processing when...