Direction and distance information in memory for location relative to landmarks

Abstract

An object's location is often remembered relative to one or more landmarks. An object has a certain direction and distance relative to a landmark. When multiple landmarks are available the information from the different landmarks is integrated. In the prevailing view direction and distance are equally influential in the integration process. We present evidence that direction and distance are not always equally influential in landmark-based memory. During the study phase of our task, participants viewed a set of layouts, each comprising a target and two landmarks. During the test phase participants attempted to place each target in the correct location relative to the two landmarks. Our measure of direction deviation indexed the degree to which the targets were placed on the basis of distance rather than solely on the basis of direction. Our measure of distance deviation indexed the degree to which the targets were placed on the basis of direction rather than solely on the basis of distance. Direction deviation was smaller than distance deviation. The results suggest that direction is more influential than distance in memory for the locations of objects relative to landmarks.

Keywords

• Spatial memory
• Direction
• Distance
• Vectors