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The effects of cue placement on the relative dominance of boundaries and landmark arrays in goal localization
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- Author(s) / Creator(s)
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Two types of visual features are identified as reference points used by individuals to encode
locations: surface-based boundaries and discrete-object-based landmarks. Previous research show
that learning locations relative to a boundary can overshadow learning relative to a landmark, but
not vice versa, suggesting that environmental boundaries play a privileged role in representing
individual locations (Doeller & Burgess, 2008). However, other research has revealed that a less
accurate cognitive map is derived from boundary-related learning than from landmark-related
learning, suggesting that a boundary is less privileged in representing inter-location spatial
relations (Zhou & Mou, 2016). The current study aims to reconcile these inconsistent findings.
Experiment 1, using both a cue-competition paradigm and a cognitive mapping task, replicated the
finding that participants preferred a circular boundary to a four-landmark array for encoding four
locations (1A), but that the cognitive maps of the locations derived from the landmark array were
more accurate (1B). Using the cue-competition paradigm, Experiments 2-4 manipulated the
placement and distinctiveness of the two cues. The results showed that manipulating the placement
of the landmark array effectively modulated the relative reliance upon the boundary/landmark array
in encoding individual location. Whereas increasing the distinctiveness of the landmark array
alone is not sufficient to eliminate the boundary advantage in localization. We propose that
the boundary privilege occurs in selecting reference points for encoding locations due to its relative
peripheral placement in the environment, whereas the landmark advantage occurs in inferring
inter-location spatial relations due to the common reference point provided by the single landmark. -
- Date created
- 2019-05-06
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- Type of Item
- Article (Published)