| Representations of the location and spatial relationship of objects has been a hot subject investigated and disputed in spatial cognition research. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether the spatial reference directions that are used to specify objects’ locations in memory can be solely determined by layout geometry or viewing point, and the effect of similarity of objects in environment on people’s construction of intrinsic frame of reference system.Two experiments were conducted in the present study.25undergraduates (13females,12males) took part in the Experiment1, a female’s data was excluded for disordered eye movements, and another24participants (12females and12males) took part in Experiment2. All participants were healthy, and had normal or corrected to normal vision. In each trial, individuals were presented with a symmetrical scene to learn, the viewing perspective is315degree and the axis of symmetry is at0degree. In Experiment1, the scene was composed by seven3D objects with no similarity. But in Experiment2, there were three objects just the same kind with a little difference in their surface. Participants’eye movements were tracked with German SMI iView X Hi-SPeed Eye Tracking System while learning. After learning, the participants needed to finish triplet recognition task in each experiment. In the task, they were required to judge if the directional relationship in these triplets were the same as the learned scene. The correct response latencies to the targets were analyzed by ANOVA.Results showed:(1) In Experiment1, when the seven objects in scenes shared no similarity, the sequence of eye fixations on objects during learning, participants moved their eyes to fixate on the next object more frequently along the directions aligned with the symmetric axis than along the directions aligned with their viewing direction (P=0.002) and other direction (P<0.001); the partial scene recognition results showed the mean response latency to triplets including the direction of axis of symmetry was significantly shorter than that of including the viewing direction (F=4.671, P=0.041, η2=0.169).(2) In Experiment2, when three of the seven objects in scenes shared similarity, participants moved their eyes to fixate on the next object still more frequently along the directions aligned with the symmetric axis than along the directions aligned with their viewing direction (P=0.015) and other direction(P<0.001), and there were much more eyes movements among similar objects than no similar ones (F=16.130, F=0.001, r/2=10A\2), the interaction between directions and similarity is remarkable (F=9.030, P<0.001, η2= 0.282). Simple effects analysis indicated that eyes movement frequencies along the directions aligned with the symmetric axis significantly higher than aligned with their viewing direction among no similar objects (F=7.77, P=0.01), but no such differences among similar ones (F=1.37, P=0.254); response latency results revealed that there were no differences between triplets including the direction of axis of symmetry with that of including the viewing direction (F=0.123, P=0.729, η2=0.005) and had similar objects or not (F=0.001, P=0.972,η2=0.000) in partial scene recognition task, but the two-way interaction of direction and similar objects included in triplets was significant (F=12.031, P=0.002, η2=0.343). Further analyses confirmed that triplets with no similar objects including the direction of axis of symmetry was significantly shorter than that of including the viewing direction(F=12.76, F=0.002), while triplets with similar objects had no such differences (F=2.02, P=0.168)Conclusions:(1) When the layout without similar objects had a symmetric axis that was different from participants’viewing direction, the sequence of eye fixations on objects during learning and the preferred directions in partial scene recognition were both determined by the direction of the symmetric axis.(2) When the layout with similar objects had a symmetric axis that was different from participants’viewing direction, the similarity of objects in symmetrical scenes affects the construction of intrinsic frame of reference system determined by layout geometry. |
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