| Much of the research in the area of spatial cognition has been guided by the largely implicit assumption that the psychological organization of space is absolute, or consistent with rules of Euclidean geometry. An alternative approach, which has guided the present research, is that locational information is stored in relative rather than in absolute terms. In particular, the location of an item is assumed to be specified in terms of its relationship (e.g., above/below) to other items in an array. Further, the encoding of relational information occurs without intention to do so.;A priming procedure was used to test these assumptions. Subjects studied a series of two-object scenes that were arranged in one of 4 relationships (above/below, side by side, diagonal to, and front/behind). They were instructed to study each object pair carefully, because memory for what objects had appeared would be tested immediately after study. After presentation of the study sequence, subjects were given a recognition test which was made up of the original scenes (whole scenes), parts of the original scenes (one object), or new scenes (both one and two object displays). Two factors varied at test: (1) whether the actually presented pairs appeared in the same relationship or in a different relationship as that shown at presentation and, (2) whether the to-be-remembered pair was primed by having part of the scene immediately precede the target pair, or misprimed by having part of another scene immediately precede the target pair. Maintaining the relationship from presentation to test had a significant effect on recognition latency for three of the four input relations (above/below, side by side, and diagonal to). When the relationship was maintained, object recognition was significantly faster than when the relationship changed. Further, for all four input relations, latency to respond was significantly faster when the target pair was primed than when it was misprimed. The results suggest that the encoding of spatial relationships is an important means by which the location of an item is coded and, among those aspects of experience which do not require intention. Implications for theories of spatial encoding are discussed. |
