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The business end of objects: Monitoring object orientation

Mello, Catherine
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1247589191

Abstract Details

2009, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, Psychology.
Studies of the spatial representations common to navigation, perspective-taking, and scene recognition have typically limited their analysis to the memory for locational (e.g., the distance and direction of objects) components of arrays. Adapted from a change detection paradigm of Simons & Wang (1998), four experiments examined whether another spatial array feature, object orientation, could be monitored across motor perspective changes and how this process is affected by memory capacity limitations and behavioral relevance. Participants were, under some circumstances, capable of monitoring the orientation of objects on-line (Experiments 2 and 4). However, this was not the case in the traditional version of the paradigm in which location changes are readily detected even across perspective changes (Experiment 1). It was found that this ability is capacity limited, to the extent that performance may be optimal with smaller set sizes (i.e., 3 rather than 5 objects; Experiment 2) and is impaired by the added cognitive demands of updating over self-motion (Experiments 2 and 4). Generalized (i.e., applied to all objects) orientation changes could be more accurately detected than the more fine-grained modification of a single object, though this level of processing may be comparatively slower and not as readily applicable to novel views of the array. The implications of these findings for the representational mechanisms and strategies used to monitor orientation are discussed. Finally, orientation changes applied to objects shown elsewhere to elicit the sensorimotor representation of this property (man-made tools; e.g., Tucker & Ellis, 1998) were more readily detected than those made on objects that possessed orientations that were of similar perceptual salience (Experiment 3) but less behaviorally relevant (i.e., living and unfamiliar, artificial objects; Experiment 4). This slight processing advantage, as well as the findings of capacity and updating effects, are consistent with views of the online system as resource-limited, dynamic, and geared towards facilitating immediate physical interaction with the environment.
David Waller, PhD (Advisor)
Leonard Mark, PhD (Committee Member)
Murali Paranandi, M Arch (Committee Member)
Robin Thomas, PhD (Committee Member)
64 p.
Psychology
spatial cognition; spatial memory; spatial updating; orientation processing

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Mello, C. (2009). The business end of objects: Monitoring object orientation [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1247589191

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Mello, Catherine. The business end of objects: Monitoring object orientation. 2009. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1247589191.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Mello, Catherine. "The business end of objects: Monitoring object orientation." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1247589191

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami1247589191
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© 2009, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.