Is language necessary for human spatial reorientation? Reconsidering evidence from dual task paradigms

Language systematizes attention: How relational language enhances relational representation by guiding attention

Language can affect cognition, but through what mechanism? Substantial past research has focused on how labeling can elicit categorical representation during online processing. We focus here on a particularly powerful type of language-relational language-and show that relational language can enhance relational representation in children through an embodied attention mechanism. Four-year-old children were given a color-location conjunction task, in which they were asked to encode a two-color square, split either vertically or horizontally (e.g., red on the left, blue on the right), and later recall the same configuration from its mirror reflection. During the encoding phase, children in the experimental condition heard relational language (e.g., "Red is on the left of blue"), while those in the control condition heard generic non-relational language (e.g., "Look at this one, look at it closely"). At recall, children in the experimental condition were more successful at choosing the correct relational representation between the two colors compared to the control group. Moreover, they exhibited different attention patterns as predicted by the attention shift account of relational representation (Franconeri et al., 2012). To test the sustained effect of language and the role of attention, during the second half of the study, the experimental condition was given generic non-relational language. There was a sustained advantage in the experimental condition for both behavioral accuracies and signature attention patterns. Overall, our findings suggest that relational language enhances relational representation by guiding learners' attention, and this facilitative effect persists over time even in the absence of language. Implications for the mechanism of how relational language can enhance the learning of relational systems (e.g., mathematics, spatial cognition) by guiding attention will be discussed.

Statistically Optimal Cue Integration During Human Spatial Navigation

In 2007, Cheng and colleagues published their influential review wherein they analyzed the literature on spatial cue interaction during navigation through a Bayesian lens, and concluded that models of optimal cue integration often applied in psychophysical studies could explain cue interaction during navigation. Since then, numerous empirical investigations have been conducted to assess the degree to which human navigators are optimal when integrating multiple spatial cues during a variety of navigation-related tasks. In the current review, we discuss the literature on human cue integration during navigation that has been published since Cheng et al.'s original review. Evidence from most studies demonstrate optimal navigation behavior when humans are presented with multiple spatial cues. However, applications of optimal cue integration models vary in their underlying assumptions (e.g., uninformative priors and decision rules). Furthermore, cue integration behavior depends in part on the nature of the cues being integrated and the navigational task (e.g., homing versus non-home goal localization). We discuss the implications of these models and suggest directions for future research.

Navigational roots of spatial and temporal memory structure

Our minds are constantly in transit, from the present to the past to the future, across places we have and have not directly experienced. Nevertheless, memories of our mental time travel are not organized continuously and are adaptively chunked into contexts and episodes. In this paper, I will review evidence that suggests that spatial boundary representations play a critical role in providing structure to both our spatial and temporal memories. I will illustrate the intimate connection between hippocampal spatial mapping and temporal sequencing of episodic memory to propose that high-level cognitive processes like mental time travel and conceptual mapping are rooted in basic navigational mechanisms that we humans and nonhuman animals share. Our neuroscientific understanding of hippocampal function across species may provide new insight into the origins of even the most uniquely human cognitive abilities.

Verbal interference paradigms: A systematic review investigating the role of language in cognition

This paper presents a systematic review of the empirical literature that uses dual-task interference methods for investigating the on-line involvement of language in various cognitive tasks. In these studies, participants perform some primary task X putatively recruiting linguistic resources while also engaging in a secondary, concurrent task. If performance on the primary task decreases under interference, there is evidence for language involvement in the primary task. We assessed studies (N = 101) reporting at least one experiment with verbal interference and at least one control task (either primary or secondary). We excluded papers with an explicitly clinical, neurological, or developmental focus. The primary tasks identified include categorization, memory, mental arithmetic, motor control, reasoning (verbal and visuospatial), task switching, theory of mind, visual change, and visuospatial integration and wayfinding. Overall, the present review found that covert language is likely to play a facilitative role in memory and categorization when items to be remembered or categorized have readily available labels, when inner speech can act as a form of behavioral self-cuing (inhibitory control, task set reminders, verbal strategy), and when inner speech is plausibly useful as "workspace," for example, for mental arithmetic. There is less evidence for the role of covert language in cross-modal integration, reasoning relying on a high degree of visual detail or items low on nameability, and theory of mind. We discuss potential pitfalls and suggestions for streamlining and improving the methodology.

An adaptive cue selection model of allocentric spatial reorientation

After becoming disoriented, an organism must use the local environment to reorient and recover vectors to important locations. A new theory, adaptive combination, suggests that the information from different spatial cues is combined with Bayesian efficiency during reorientation. To test this further, we modified the standard reorientation paradigm to be more amenable to Bayesian cue combination analyses while still requiring reorientation in an allocentric (i.e., world-based, not egocentric) frame. Twelve adults and 20 children at ages 5 to 7 years old were asked to recall locations in a virtual environment after a disorientation. Results were not consistent with adaptive combination. Instead, they are consistent with the use of the most useful (nearest) single landmark in isolation. We term this adaptive selection. Experiment 2 suggests that adults also use the adaptive selection method when they are not disoriented but are still required to use a local allocentric frame. This suggests that the process of recalling a location in the allocentric frame is typically guided by the single most useful landmark rather than a Bayesian combination of landmarks. These results illustrate that there can be important limits to Bayesian theories of the cognition, particularly for complex tasks such as allocentric recall.

Whether studying the development of children’s spatial cognition, creating artificial intelligence with human-like capacities, or designing civic spaces, we can benefit from a strong understanding of how humans process the space around them. Here we tested a prominent theory that brings together statistical theory and psychological theory (Bayesian models of perception and memory) but found that it could not satisfactorily explain our data. Our findings suggest that when tracking the spatial relations between objects from different viewpoints, rather than efficiently combining all the available landmarks, people often fall back to the much simpler method of tracking the spatial relation to the nearest landmark.

Separation of geometric and featural information in children's spatial representation: Evidence from a model selection task

Previous studies in spatial reorientation have found that young children rely mainly on geometric shapes for reorientation and sometimes ignore features in the environment. Theoretical interpretations of children's reorientation performance are usually attributed to children's spatial representation of their surrounding environments. The geometric module theory states that featural information is represented separately from geometric shape in young children's reorientation, whereas the adaptive combination model depicts an integral representation. Reorientation tasks, however, require the recognition of a specific location, and thus how the whole environment is represented remains unknown. The current study, using a model selection task, explored young children's representation of the whole surrounding environment. A total of 75 children aged 3-5 years participated in the study. In each trial, children observed a large enclosure and were then asked to choose the corresponding model from two small models. The geometric shapes of the enclosure (rectangle vs. rhombus) and the types of distractors (shape distraction vs. feature position distraction) varied. Results showed that all three age groups performed above the chance level in the shape distraction conditions. Children had more difficulty with the feature position distraction conditions than with the shape distraction conditions. When the distractor shared the feature but at an inappropriate position, children's performance was significantly poorer, especially in the rhombic enclosure. The results provide evidence that young children may represent featural cues separately from geometric shapes.

The Effect of Cognitive Load on Intent-Based Moral Judgment

When making a moral judgment, people largely care about two factors: Who did it (causal responsibility), and did they intend to (intention)? Since Piaget's seminal studies, we have known that as children mature, they gradually place greater emphasis on intention, and less on mere bad outcomes, when making moral judgments. Today, we know that this developmental shift has several signature properties. Recently, it has been shown that when adults make moral judgments under cognitive load, they exhibit a pattern similar to young children; that is, their judgments become notably more outcome based. Here, we show that all of the same signature properties that accompany the outcome-to-intent shift in childhood characterize the "intent-to-outcome" shift obtained under cognitive load in adults. These findings hold important implications for current theories of moral judgment.

Assessing abstract thought and its relation to language with a new nonverbal paradigm: Evidence from aphasia

In recent years, language has been shown to play a number of important cognitive roles over and above the communication of thoughts. One hypothesis gaining support is that language facilitates thought about abstract categories, such as democracy or prediction. To test this proposal, a novel set of semantic memory task trials, designed for assessing abstract thought non-linguistically, were normed for levels of abstractness. The trials were rated as more or less abstract to the degree that answering them required the participant to abstract away from both perceptual features and common setting associations corresponding to the target image. The normed materials were then used with a population of people with aphasia to assess the relationship of abstract thought to language. While the language-impaired group with aphasia showed lower overall accuracy and longer response times than controls in general, of special note is that their response times were significantly longer as a function of a trial's degree of abstractness. Further, the aphasia group's response times in reporting their degree of confidence (a separate, metacognitive measure) were negatively correlated with their language production abilities, with lower language scores predicting longer metacognitive response times. These results provide some support for the hypothesis that language is an important aid to abstract thought and to metacognition about abstract thought.

The importance of visuospatial abilities for verbal number skills in preschool: Adding spatial language to the equation

Children's verbal number skills set the foundation for mathematical development. Therefore, it is central to understand their cognitive origins. Evidence suggests that preschool children rely on visuospatial abilities when solving counting and number naming tasks despite their predominantly verbal nature. We aimed to replicate these findings when controlling for verbal abilities and sociodemographic factors. Moreover, we further characterized the relation between visuospatial abilities and verbal number skills by examining the role of spatial language. Because spatial language encompasses the verbalization of spatial thinking, it is a key candidate supporting the interplay between visuospatial and verbal processes. Regression analysis indicated that both visuospatial and verbal abilities, as assessed by spatial perception and phonological awareness, respectively, uniquely predicted verbal number skills when controlling for their respective influences, age, gender, and socioeconomic status. This confirms the spatial grounding of verbal number skills. Interestingly, adding spatial language to the model abolished the predictive effects of visuospatial and verbal abilities, whose influences were completely mediated by spatial language. Verbal number skills thus concurrently depend on specifically those visuospatial and verbal processes jointly indexed through spatial language. The knowledge of spatial terms might promote verbal number skills by advancing the understanding of the spatial relations between numerical magnitudes on the mental number line. Promoting spatial language in preschool thus might be a successful avenue for stimulating mathematical development prior to formal schooling. Moreover, measures of spatial language could become an additional promising tool to screen preschool children for potential upcoming difficulties with mathematical learning.

The role of spatial and spatial-temporal analysis in children's causal cognition of continuous processes

Past research has largely ignored children's ability to conjointly manipulate spatial and temporal information, but there are indications that the capacity to do so may provide important support for reasoning about causal processes. We hypothesised that spatial-temporal thinking is central to children's ability to identify the invisible mechanisms that tie cause and effect together in continuous casual processes, which are focal in primary school science and crucial to understanding of the natural world. We investigated this in two studies (N = 107, N = 124), employing two methodologies, one shorter, the other more in depth. Further tasks assessed spatial-temporal (flow of liquid, extrapolation of relative speed, distance-time-velocity), spatial (two mental rotation, paper folding), verbal (expressive vocabulary), and nonverbal (block design) ability. Age dependent patterns were detected for both causal and predictor tasks. Two spatial-temporal tasks were unique and central predictors of children's causal reasoning, especially inference of mechanism. Nonverbal ability predicted the simpler components of causal reasoning. One mental rotation task predicted only young children's causal thinking. Verbal ability became significant when the sample included children from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Causal reasoning about continuous processes, including inferences of causal mechanism, appears to be within the reach of children from school entry age, but mechanism inference is uncommon. Analytic forms of spatial-temporal capacity seem to be important requirements for children to progress to this rather than merely perceptual forms.

The Neurocognitive Basis of Spatial Reorientation

The ability to recover one's bearings when lost is a skill that is fundamental for spatial navigation. We review the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie this ability, with the aim of linking together previously disparate findings from animal behavior, human psychology, electrophysiology, and cognitive neuroscience. Behavioral work suggests that reorientation involves two key abilities: first, the recovery of a spatial reference frame (a cognitive map) that is appropriate to the current environment; and second, the determination of one's heading and location relative to that reference frame. Electrophysiological recording studies, primarily in rodents, have revealed potential correlates of these operations in place, grid, border/boundary, and head-direction cells in the hippocampal formation. Cognitive neuroscience studies, primarily in humans, suggest that the perceptual inputs necessary for these operations are processed by neocortical regions such as the retrosplenial complex, occipital place area and parahippocampal place area, with the retrosplenial complex mediating spatial transformations between the local environment and the recovered spatial reference frame, the occipital place area supporting perception of local boundaries, and the parahippocampal place area processing visual information that is essential for identification of the local spatial context. By combining results across these various literatures, we converge on a unified account of reorientation that bridges the cognitive and neural domains.

Verbal cues flexibly transform spatial representations in human memory

Humans possess a unique ability to communicate spatially-relevant information, yet the intersection between language and navigation remains largely unexplored. One possibility is that verbal cues accentuate heuristics useful for coding spatial layouts, yet this idea remains largely untested. We test the idea that verbal cues flexibly accentuate the coding of heuristics to remember spatial layouts via spatial boundaries or landmarks. The alternative hypothesis instead conceives of encoding during navigation as a step-wise process involving binding lower-level features, and thus subsequently formed spatial representations should not be modified by verbal cues. Across three experiments, we found that verbal cues significantly affected pointing error patterns at axes that were aligned with the verbally cued heuristic, suggesting that verbal cues influenced the heuristics employed to remember object positions. Further analyses suggested evidence for a hybrid model, in which boundaries were encoded more obligatorily than landmarks, but both were accessed flexibly with verbal instruction. These findings could not be accounted for by a tendency to spend more time facing the instructed component during navigation, ruling out an attentional-encoding mechanism. Our findings argue that verbal cues influence the heuristics employed to code environments, suggesting a mechanism for how humans use language to communicate navigationally-relevant information.

Language unifies relational coding: The roles of label acquisition and accessibility in making flexible relational judgments

Language is likely structuring spatial judgments, but how it achieves this is not clear. We examined the development of relative, spatial judgments across verbal and nonverbal tasks of above, below, right and left in children between the ages of 5 and 10 years. We found that the verbal ability to make above/below judgments preceded verbal right/left judgments and all nonverbal judgments. We also found that only when the labels were accessed - as opposed to only having been acquired - did children's nonverbal performance improve. Our findings further indicate that accessing the correct term was not needed for enhanced performance. The results suggest that accessing language unifies different instantiations of a relation into a single representation.

Intersection as key locations for bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) traveling within a route network

There is evidence that wild animals are able to recall key locations and associate them with navigational routes. Studies in primate navigation suggest most species navigate through the route network system, using intersections among routes as locations of decision-making. Recent approaches presume that points of directional change may be key locations where animals decide where to go next. Over four consecutive years, we observed how a wild group of bearded capuchin monkeys used a route network system and Change Point locations (CPs) in the Brazilian ecotone of Cerrado-Caatinga. We built 200 daily routes of one wild bearded capuchin group. We used ArcGIS, the Change Point Test, Spatial Analysis in Macroecology (SAM), and statistical models to test the hypothesis that wild bearded capuchins use CPs located along routes in a different fashion than they use the CPs located at intersections of routes. A logistic regression model was used to determine the landscape variables affecting capuchins' directional changes at intersections or along routes. CPs at intersections were important points of travel path changes, whereas CPs along routes represented a zig-zag movement along the routes following the landscape features. CPs at intersections were associated with steeper terrains and shorter distances from important resources, along with better visibility of the home range. Our results support the hypothesis that intersections among routes in the route network system are located at points where monkeys have the best visibility available to make decisions on where to visit next.

Sex differences and the effect of instruction on reorientation abilities by humans

This study examined whether differences in the amount of information provided to men and women, in the form of verbal instruction, influenced their encoding during a reorientation task. When a navigator needs to orient, featural (e.g., colour or texture) and geometry (e.g., metric information) are used to determine which direction to begin traveling. The current study used a spatial reorientation task to examine how men and women use featural and geometric cues and whether the content of the task's instructions influenced how these cues were used. Participants were trained to find a target location in a rectangular room with distinctive objects situated at each corner. Once the participants were accurately locating the target, various tests manipulating the spatial information were conducted. We found both men and women encoded the featural cues, and even though the features provided reliable information, participants generally showed an encoding of geometry. However, when participants were not provided with any information about the spatial aspects of the task in the instructions, they failed to encode geometry. We also found that women used distant featural cues as landmarks when the featural cue closest to the target was removed, whereas men did not. Yet, when the two types of cues were placed in conflict, both sexes weighed featural cues more heavily than geometric cues. The content of the task instructions also influenced how cues were relied upon in this conflict situation. Our results have important implications for our understanding of how spatial cues are used for reorientation.

Verbalizing, visualizing, and navigating: The effect of strategies on encoding a large-scale virtual environment

Using novel virtual cities, we investigated the influence of verbal and visual strategies on the encoding of navigation-relevant information in a large-scale virtual environment. In 2 experiments, participants watched videos of routes through 4 virtual cities and were subsequently tested on their memory for observed landmarks and their ability to make judgments regarding the relative directions of the different landmarks along the route. In the first experiment, self-report questionnaires measuring visual and verbal cognitive styles were administered to examine correlations between cognitive styles, landmark recognition, and judgments of relative direction. Results demonstrate a tradeoff in which the verbal cognitive style is more beneficial for recognizing individual landmarks than for judging relative directions between them, whereas the visual cognitive style is more beneficial for judging relative directions than for landmark recognition. In a second experiment, we manipulated the use of verbal and visual strategies by varying task instructions given to separate groups of participants. Results confirm that a verbal strategy benefits landmark memory, whereas a visual strategy benefits judgments of relative direction. The manipulation of strategy by altering task instructions appears to trump individual differences in cognitive style. Taken together, we find that processing different details during route encoding, whether due to individual proclivities (Experiment 1) or task instructions (Experiment 2), results in benefits for different components of navigation-relevant information. These findings also highlight the value of considering multiple sources of individual differences as part of spatial cognition investigations. (PsycINFO Database Record

An adaptive cue combination model of human spatial reorientation

Previous research has proposed an adaptive cue combination view of the development of human spatial reorientation (Newcombe & Huttenlocher, 2006), whereby information from multiple sources is combined in a weighted fashion in localizing a target, as opposed to being modular and encapsulated (Hermer & Spelke, 1996). However, no prior work has formalized this proposal and tested it against existing empirical data. We propose a computational model of human spatial reorientation that is motivated by probabilistic approaches to optimal perceptual cue integration (e.g. Ernst & Banks, 2002) and to spatial location coding (Huttenlocher, Hedges, & Duncan, 1991). We show that this model accounts for data from a variety of human reorientation experiments, providing support for the adaptive combination view of reorientation.

Bridging views in cinema: a review of the art and science of view integration

Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the relationship between film and cognitive science. This is reflected in a new science of cinema that can help us both to understand this art form, and to produce new insights about cognition and perception. In this review, we begin by describing how the initial development of cinema involved close observation of audience response. This allowed filmmakers to develop an informal theory of visual cognition that helped them to isolate and creatively recombine fundamental elements of visual experience. We review research exploring naturalistic forms of visual perception and cognition that have opened the door to a productive convergence between the dynamic visual art of cinema and science of visual cognition that can enrich both. In particular, we discuss how parallel understandings of view integration in cinema and in cognitive science have been converging to support a new understanding of meaningful visual experience. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1436. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1436 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Producing Spatial Words Is Not Enough: Understanding the Relation Between Language and Spatial Cognition

Prior research has investigated the relation between children's language and spatial cognition by assessing the quantity of children's spatial word production, with limited attention to the context in which children use such words. This study tested whether 4-year-olds children's (N = 41, primarily white middle class) adaptive use of task-relevant language across contexts predicted their spatial skills. Children were presented with a spatial scene description task, four spatial tasks, and vocabulary assessments. Children's adaptive use of task-relevant language was more predictive of their spatial skills than demographic and language factors (e.g., quantity of spatial words produced). These findings identify new links between language and spatial cognition and highlight the importance of understanding the quality, not just quantity, of children's language use.

Impaired reasoning and problem-solving in individuals with language impairment due to aphasia or language delay

The precise nature of the relationship between language and thought is an intriguing and challenging area of inquiry for scientists across many disciplines. In the realm of neuropsychology, research has investigated the inter-dependence of language and thought by testing individuals with compromised language abilities and observing whether performance in other cognitive domains is diminished. One group of such individuals is patients with aphasia who have an impairment in speech and language arising from a brain injury, such as a stroke. Our previous research has shown that the degree of language impairment in these individuals is strongly associated with the degree of impairment on complex reasoning tasks, such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) and Raven’s Matrices. In the current study, we present new data from a large group of individuals with aphasia that show a dissociation in performance between putatively non-verbal tasks on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) that require differing degrees of reasoning (Picture Completion vs. Picture Arrangement tasks). We also present an update and replication of our previous findings with the WCST showing that individuals with the most profound core language deficits (i.e., impaired comprehension and disordered language output) are particularly impaired on problem-solving tasks. In the second part of the paper, we present findings from a neurologically intact individual known as “Chelsea” who was not exposed to language due to an unaddressed hearing loss that was present since birth. At the age of 32, she was fitted with hearing aids and exposed to spoken and signed language for the first time, but she was only able to acquire a limited language capacity. Chelsea was tested on a series of standardized neuropsychological measures, including reasoning and problem-solving tasks. She was able to perform well on a number of visuospatial tasks but was disproportionately impaired on tasks that required reasoning, such as Raven’s Matrices and the WAIS Picture Arrangement task. Together, these findings suggest that language supports complex reasoning, possibly due to the facilitative role of verbal working memory and inner speech in higher mental processes.

The developmental trajectory of intramaze and extramaze landmark biases in spatial navigation: An unexpected journey

Adults learning to navigate to a hidden goal within an enclosed space have been found to prefer information provided by the distal cues of an environment, as opposed to proximal landmarks within the environment. Studies with children, however, have shown that 5- or 7-year-olds do not display any preference toward distal or proximal cues during navigation. This suggests that a bias toward learning about distal cues occurs somewhere between the age of 7 years and adulthood. We recruited 5- to 11-year-old children and an adult sample to explore the developmental profile of this putative change. Across a series of 3 experiments, participants were required to navigate to a hidden goal in a virtual environment, the location of which was signaled by both extramaze and intramaze landmark cues. During testing, these cues were placed into conflict to assess the search preferences of participants. Consistent with previously reported findings, adults were biased toward using extramaze information. However, analysis of the data from children, which incorporated age as a continuous variable, suggested that older children in our sample were, in fact, biased toward using the intramaze landmark in our task. These findings suggest the bias toward using distal cues in spatial navigation, frequently displayed by adults, may be a comparatively late developing trait, and one that could supersede an initial developmental preference for proximal landmarks.

An information theory analysis of spatial decisions in cognitive development

Performance in a cognitive task can be considered as the outcome of a decision-making process operating across various knowledge domains or aspects of a single domain. Therefore, an analysis of these decisions in various tasks can shed light on the interplay and integration of these domains (or elements within a single domain) as they are associated with specific task characteristics. In this study, we applied an information theoretic approach to assess quantitatively the gain of knowledge across various elements of the cognitive domain of spatial, relational knowledge, as a function of development. Specifically, we examined changing spatial relational knowledge from ages 5 to 10 years. Our analyses consisted of a two-step process. First, we performed a hierarchical clustering analysis on the decisions made in 16 different tasks of spatial relational knowledge to determine which tasks were performed similarly at each age group as well as to discover how the tasks clustered together. We next used two measures of entropy to capture the gradual emergence of order in the development of relational knowledge. These measures of "cognitive entropy" were defined based on two independent aspects of chunking, namely (1) the number of clusters formed at each age group, and (2) the distribution of tasks across the clusters. We found that both measures of entropy decreased with age in a quadratic fashion and were positively and linearly correlated. The decrease in entropy and, therefore, gain of information during development was accompanied by improved performance. These results document, for the first time, the orderly and progressively structured "chunking" of decisions across the development of spatial relational reasoning and quantify this gain within a formal information-theoretic framework.

The hippocampus is not a geometric module: processing environment geometry during reorientation

The hippocampus has long been known to play a role in allocentric spatial coding, but its specific involvement in reorientation, or the recalibration of a disrupted egocentric spatial representation using allocentric spatial information, has received less attention. Initially, the cognitive literature on reorientation focused on a “geometric module” sensitive to the shape formed by extended surfaces in the environment, and the neuroscience literature followed with proposals that particular MTL regions might be the seat of such a module. However, with behavioral evidence mounting that a modular cognitive architecture is unlikely, recent work has begun to directly address the issue of the neural underpinnings of reorientation. In this review, we describe the reorientation paradigm, initial proposals for the role of the MTL when people reorient, our recent work on the neural bases of reorientation, and finally, how this new information regarding neural mechanism helps to re-interpret and clarify the original behavioral reorientation data.

Asymmetrical interference effects between two-dimensional geometric shapes and their corresponding shape words

Nativists have postulated fundamental geometric knowledge that predates linguistic and symbolic thought. Central to these claims is the proposal for an isolated cognitive system dedicated to processing geometric information. Testing such hypotheses presents challenges due to difficulties in eliminating the combination of geometric and non-geometric information through language. We present evidence using a modified matching interference paradigm that an incongruent shape word interferes with identifying a two-dimensional geometric shape, but an incongruent two-dimensional geometric shape does not interfere with identifying a shape word. This asymmetry in interference effects between two-dimensional geometric shapes and their corresponding shape words suggests that shape words activate spatial representations of shapes but shapes do not activate linguistic representations of shape words. These results appear consistent with hypotheses concerning a cognitive system dedicated to processing geometric information isolated from linguistic processing and provide evidence consistent with hypotheses concerning knowledge of geometric properties of space that predates linguistic and symbolic thought.

Shape shifting: Local landmarks interfere with navigation by, and recognition of, global shape

An influential theory of spatial navigation states that the boundary shape of an environment is preferentially encoded over and above other spatial cues, such that it is impervious to interference from alternative sources of information. We explored this claim with 3 intradimensional-extradimensional shift experiments, designed to examine the interaction of landmark and geometric features of the environment in a virtual navigation task. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were first required to find a hidden goal using information provided by the shape of the arena or landmarks integrated into the arena boundary (Experiment 1) or within the arena itself (Experiment 2). Participants were then transferred to a different-shaped arena that contained novel landmarks and were again required to find a hidden goal. In both experiments, participants who were navigating on the basis of cues that were from the same dimension that was previously relevant (intradimensional shift) learned to find the goal significantly faster than participants who were navigating on the basis of cues that were from a dimension that was previously irrelevant (extradimensional shift). This suggests that shape information does not hold special status when learning about an environment. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2 and also assessed participants' recognition of the global shape of the navigated arenas. Recognition was attenuated when landmarks were relevant to navigation throughout the experiment. The results of these experiments are discussed in terms of associative and non-associative theories of spatial learning.

Core systems of geometry in animal minds

Research on humans from birth to maturity converges with research on diverse animals to reveal foundational cognitive systems in human and animal minds. The present article focuses on two such systems of geometry. One system represents places in the navigable environment by recording the distance and direction of the navigator from surrounding, extended surfaces. The other system represents objects by detecting the shapes of small-scale forms. These two systems show common signatures across animals, suggesting that they evolved in distant ancestral species. As children master symbolic systems such as maps and language, they come productively to combine representations from the two core systems of geometry in uniquely human ways; these combinations may give rise to abstract geometric intuitions. Studies of the ontogenetic and phylogenetic sources of abstract geometry therefore are illuminating of both human and animal cognition. Research on animals brings simpler model systems and richer empirical methods to bear on the analysis of abstract concepts in human minds. In return, research on humans, relating core cognitive capacities to symbolic abilities, sheds light on the content of representations in animal minds.

Psychology of spatial cognition

In this overview, focusing on memory and higher cognitive processes, we cover some of the most relevant results that emerged from research on spatial cognition in animals and in humans in the last 3 decades. In particular, we discuss how representations of distance and direction are used to localize oneself with respect to the external world, to determine the position of objects with respect to each other, and to compute the position of invisible goals. The role of landmarks and environmental geometry as cues for extracting spatial information in such abilities is compared, and the reliance upon self-centered and external frames of reference is discussed. Moreover, the contribution of working memory and processing strategies in forming representations of spatial relations in humans is presented. Finally, implications for some neighboring fields of the cognitive sciences will be outlined. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1198 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Cognitive effects of language on human navigation

Language has been linked to spatial representation and behavior in humans, but the nature of this effect is debated. Here, we test whether simple verbal expressions improve 4-year-old children's performance in a disoriented search task in a small rectangular room with a single red landmark wall. Disoriented children's landmark-guided search for a hidden object was dramatically enhanced when the experimenter used certain verbal expressions to designate the landmark during the hiding event. Both a spatial expression ("I'm hiding the sticker at the red/white wall") and a non-spatial but task-relevant expression ("The red/white wall can help you get the sticker") enhanced children's search, relative to uncued controls. By contrast, a verbal expression that drew attention to the landmark in a task-irrelevant manner ("Look at this pretty red/white wall") produced no such enhancement. These findings provide further evidence that language changes spatial behavior in children and illuminate one mechanism through which language exerts its effect: by helping children understand the relevance of landmarks for encoding locations.

Use of local and global geometry from object arrays by adult humans

Disoriented men and women were trained to search for a goal hidden in front of one of four objects forming a rectangular-shaped array. The angular properties of these objects (either 50° or 75°) served as local geometric cues and the rectangular shape of the array served as global geometric cues. Upon successful completion of training, transformation tests were conducted during which either the local angle cues were removed and the global geometry was preserved (Global Cues test) or the local angles were preserved and the global geometry was removed (Local Cues test). A Cue Conflict test was also conducted which placed the local geometry in direct competition with the global geometry for control of search behavior. Results from testing showed that neither men nor women could successfully use only the global geometric cues provided by the shape of the array to reorient. Analyses of sex differences for the use of local cues revealed that men showed clear evidence that they had successfully encoded the local angular cues whereas women did not. Furthermore, the size of the training angle may have affected the encoding of local cues.

Evidence from an emerging sign language reveals that language supports spatial cognition

Although spatial language and spatial cognition covary over development and across languages, determining the causal direction of this relationship presents a challenge. Here we show that mature human spatial cognition depends on the acquisition of specific aspects of spatial language. We tested two cohorts of deaf signers who acquired an emerging sign language in Nicaragua at the same age but during different time periods: the first cohort of signers acquired the language in its infancy, and 10 y later the second cohort of signers acquired the language in a more complex form. We found that the second-cohort signers, now in their 20s, used more consistent spatial language than the first-cohort signers, now in their 30s. Correspondingly, they outperformed the first cohort in spatially guided searches, both when they were disoriented and when an array was rotated. Consistent linguistic marking of left-right relations correlated with search performance under disorientation, whereas consistent marking of ground information correlated with search in rotated arrays. Human spatial cognition therefore is modulated by the acquisition of a rich language.

Encoding geometric and non-geometric information: a study with evolved agents

Vertebrate species use geometric information and non-geometric or featural cues to orient. Under some circumstances, when both geometric and non-geometric information are available, the geometric information overwhelms non-geometric cues (geometric primacy). In other cases, we observe the inverse tendency or the successful integration of both cues. In past years, modular explanations have been proposed for the geometric primacy: geometric and non-geometric information are processed separately, with the geometry module playing a dominant role. The modularity issue is related to the recent debate on the encoding of geometric information: is it innate or does it depend on environmental experience? In order to get insight into the mechanisms that cause the wide variety of behaviors observed in nature, we used Artificial Life experiments. We demonstrated that agents trained mainly with a single class of information oriented efficiently when they were exposed to one class of information (geometric or non-geometric). When they were tested in environments that contained both classes of information, they displayed a primacy for the information that they had experienced more during their training phase. Encoding and processing geometric and non-geometric information was run in a single cognitive neuro-representation. These findings represent a theoretical proof that the exposure frequency to different spatial information during a learning/adaptive history could produce agents with no modular neuro-cognitive systems that are able to process different types of spatial information and display various orientation behaviors (geometric primacy, non-geometric primacy, no primacy at all).

Spatial representation across species: geometry, language, and maps

We review growing evidence that the reorientation system-shared by both humans and nonhuman species-privileges geometric representations of space and exhibits many of the characteristic features of modular systems. We also review evidence showing that humans can move beyond the limits of nonhuman species by using two cultural constructions, language and explicit maps. We argue that, although both of these constructions are uniquely human means of enriching the spatial system we share with other species, their representational formats, functions, and developmental trajectories are quite different, yielding distinctly different tools for empowering human spatial cognition.The capacity to reorient using geometry is present in humans by the age of 18 months.

Reorienting When Cues Conflict

Proponents of a geometric module claim that human adults accomplish spatial reorientation in a fundamentally different way than young children and non-human animals do. However, reporting two experiments that used a conflict paradigm, this article shows striking similarities between human adults and young children, as well as nonhuman animals. Specifically, Experiment 1 demonstrates that adults favor geometric information in a small room and rely on features in a larger room, whereas Experiment 2 demonstrates that experience in a larger room produces dominance of features over geometric cues in a small room—the first human case of reliance on features that contradict geometric information. Thus, use of features during reorientation depends on the size of the environment and learning history. These results clearly undermine the modularity claim and the view that feature use during reorientation is purely associative, and we discuss the findings within an adaptive-combination view, according to which a weighting system determines use of feature or geometric cues during reorientation.

Modern modularity and the road towards a modular psychiatry

We propose to use modules representing functional subunits of the brain as the substrates of pathogenetic factors in mental disorders. This approach is based on scientific evidence from neurophysiology and cognitive psychology regarding the organisation of the human brain in functionally discernible, not necessarily temporally or spatially stable subunits, which are interconnected in complex, often multilayered networks of neuronal circuits. Such a definition would reconcile modern network theories of brain function with localizationist models. Module-based diagnosis and therapy of mental disorders will be the goal of a modular psychiatry, which has the advantage that it is founded in neuroscientific evidence and does not rely on arbitrary definitions of mental disorders based mainly on clinical empiricism.

Whither geometry? Troubles of the geometric module

In rectangular arenas, rats often confuse diagonally opposite corners, even when distinctive cues differentiate them. This led to the postulation that rats rely preferentially on the geometry of space, encoded in a dedicated geometric module. Recent research casts doubt on this idea. Distinctive featural cues such as entire walls of a distinct color can hinder or aid the learning of geometry. In one situation in which using geometry would help greatly, rats had trouble learning the task. An associative model has been developed to capture these different learning processes, and view-based matching has been proposed as an alternative to the explicit coding of geometric cues. Considerations about how cues interact in learning are crucial in a recent theory of human spatial cognition.

Assessing human reorientation ability inside virtual reality environments: the effects of retention interval and landmark characteristics

The purpose of the present study was to assess the navigational behaviour of adult humans following a disorientation procedure that perturbed their egocentric frame of reference. The assessment was carried out in a virtual reality (VR) environment by manipulating the disorientation procedure, the retention interval, the relative positions of target and landmark. The results of experiment I demonstrated that adding a physical rotation to a virtual disorientation procedure did not yield an additional decrease in searching performance. The results of experiment II showed that shortening the delay between study and test phase decreased the errors more markedly for geometric than landmark ones. An orientation specificity effect due to the manipulation of the relative position between target and landmark was discussed across the experiments. In conclusion, VR seemed to be a valuable method for studying human reorientation. Moreover, the virtual experimental setting involved here promoted knowledge of the relationship between working memory and spatial reorientation paradigm.