Lecture 5 - Spatial Cognition

Question 1

What was Whorf’s idea about language?

Answer 1

The language that you speak fundamentally transforms the way you perceive the world.

Question 2

How do psychologists view on the effect of language and how does it differ from that of Whorf’s view?

Answer 2

Psychologists believe that language alters our attention, rather than our perception.

Question 3

What is the average number of basic colour terms English speakers use?

Answer 3

Around 11

Question 4

What did Unai & Paparagou (2016) find about the effects of language?

Answer 4

Language alters what we attend to and what we can represent.

Question 5

How many types of spatial representation are there, and what are they?

Answer 5

3:

• egocentric
• landmark-based
• allocentric (geometric cues)

Question 6

Describe egocentric spatial representation?

Answer 6

We encode information into memory in relation to where you and your own body is.

Question 7

Describe landmark-based spatial representations.

Answer 7

Encoding spatial information according to other salient features of the environment (e.g. Old Joe is near Aston Webb building and Bramall Music)

Question 8

Describe allocentric spatial representations.

Answer 8

Spatial information is encoded according to geometric properties of the environment, doesn’t rely on your position within the location and is landmark-free.

(e.g. differentiating between two corners of a room because one wall is longer than another)

Question 9

What did Acredolo (1978) investigate about spatial encoding?

Answer 9

Used a Y/T maze to test how infants encode spatial information.

Question 10

What did Acredolo (1978) find about spatial encoding?

Answer 10

Smaller infants made systematic errors on the task, which show that they were using an egocentric method of spatial representation.

When starting at a different place in the maze, they would continue to turn in the same direction as before, which does not lead them to the target.

Question 11

Infants are able to pass the Y/T maze test at what age (Acredolo, 1978)? What does this indicate about how they encode spatial information?

Answer 11

Infants can pass at 16 months, indicating that they no longer encode spatial information egocentrically.

Question 12

Infants fail the Y/T maze test at what age (Acredolo, 1978)? What does this indicate about how they encode spatial information?

Answer 12

Infants fail at 6 and 11 months, indicating that they encode spatial information egocentrically.

Question 13

What did Huttenlocher et al (1994) find about how infants encode information spatially?

Answer 13

One year olds use landmark-based spatial processing to search for targets, but only a single landmark is used.

5 year old infants however, are able to encode targets in relation to two or more landmarks.

Question 14

Why is it thought that 5 year olds can use two or more landmarks to locate a target’s position, but 1 year olds cannot?

Answer 14

5 year olds are thought to have a superior working memory capacity.

Question 15

What did Cheng (1986) investigate and find out about how rats encode spatial information?

Answer 15

Disorientated rats by eliminating landmark and egocentric cues in a rectangular room.

Found, by hiding treats in one corner, that rats could use allocentric cues to locate the treat, but did not achieve a very high success rate.

Question 16

What did Hermer & Spelke (1996) investigate and find out about how infants encode spatial information?

Answer 16

Identical to Cheng’s (1986), in that it placed infants in a room and disorientated them so they could not utilise landmark-based or egocentric representations.

Found that infants at 21 months old were able to use allocentric cues to search in the two potentially correct locations.

Question 17

Describe how infants, adults and rats encode spatial information when both allocentric and landmark-based cues are available?

Answer 17

Infants and rats are unable to combine allocentric and landmark representations, and focus solely on allocentric cues.

Adults however are able to integrate landmark-based and allocentric cues, leading to a far higher success rate on disorientation tasks.

Question 18

What did Hermer-Vazquez, Spelke and Katnelson (2000) theorise about why adults integrate landmark and allocentric cues differently to infants & rats ?

Answer 18

Adults are able to use language to combine the different type of representations, whereas rats and infants cannot.

Question 19

What is the opposition to Hermer-Vazquez et al’s (2000) claim that language is the reason why adults can integrate different types of spatial cues but infants and rats cannot?

Answer 19

• Goldfish are able to integrate different tpyes of spatial cues - this is thought to be due to their need to locate 3D space much more than infants and rats do.
• Adults and infants have increased performance on the task when the space is larger and when they have repeated trials.

Suggests language is a useful, but not necessary tool in which to integrate different types of spatial cues.