Visual and tactile memory for 2-D patterns: Effects of changes in size and left-right orientation

Scaling up = scaling down? Children's spatial scaling in different perceptual modalities and scaling directions

The present study examined whether scaling direction and perceptual modality affect children's spatial scaling. Children aged 6-8 years (N = 201) were assigned to a visual, visuo-haptic, and haptic condition in which they were presented with colourful, embossed graphics. In the haptic condition, they were asked to wear a blindfold during the test trials. Across several trials, children were asked to learn about the position of a target in a map and to localize a disc at the same location in a referent space. Scaling factor was manipulated systematically, so that children had to either scale up or scale down spatial information. Their absolute deviations from the correct target location, reversal and signed errors, and response times served as dependent variables. Results revealed higher absolute deviations and response times for the haptic modality as opposed to the visual modality. Children's signed errors, however, showed similar response strategies across the perceptual conditions. Therefore, it seems that a functional equivalence between vision and touch seems to emerge slowly across development for spatial scaling. With respect to scaling directions, findings showed that absolute deviations were affected by scaling factors, with symmetric increases in scaling up and scaling down in the haptic condition. Conversely, children showed an unbalanced pattern in the visual conditions, with higher accuracy in scaling down as opposed to scaling up. Overall, our findings suggest that visibility seems to factor into children's scaling process.

Effects of scaling direction on adults' spatial scaling in different perceptual domains

The current study investigated adults' strategies of spatial scaling from memory in three perceptual conditions (visual, haptic, and visuo-haptic) when scaling up and down. Following previous research, we predicted the usage of mental transformation strategies. In all conditions, participants (N = 90, aged 19-28 years) were presented with tactile, colored graphics which allowed to visually and haptically explore spatial information. Participants were first asked to encode a map including a target. Then, they were instructed to place a response object at the same place on an empty, constant-sized referent space. Maps had five different sizes resulting in five scaling factors (3:1, 2:1, 1:1, 1:2, 1:3). This manipulation also allowed assessing potentially symmetric effects of scaling direction on adults' responses. Response times and absolute errors served as dependent variables. In line with our hypotheses, the changes in these dependent variables were best explained by a quadratic function which suggests the usage of mental transformation strategies for spatial scaling. There were no differences between perceptual conditions concerning the influence of scaling factor on dependent variables. Results revealed symmetric effects of scaling direction on participants' accuracy whereas there were small differences for response times. Our findings highlight the usage of mental transformation strategies in adults' spatial scaling, irrespective of perceptual modality and scaling direction.

Blindfolded adults use mental transformation strategies for spatial scaling of tactile maps

The current study tested strategies of spatial scaling in the haptic domain. Blindfolded adults (N = 31, aged 20–24 years) were presented with an embossed graphic including a target and asked to encode a target location on this map, imagine this map at a given scale, and to localize a target at the same spot on an empty referent space. Maps varied in three different sizes whereas the referent space had a constant size, resulting in three different scaling factors (1:1, 1:2, 1:4). Participants’ response times and localization errors were measured. Analyses indicated that both response times and errors increased with higher scaling factors, suggesting the usage of mental transformation stratergies for spatial scaling. Overall, the present study provides a suitable, novel methodology to assess spatial scaling in the haptic domain.

Adults' spatial scaling: evidence from the haptic domain

The current study investigated adults' spatial-scaling abilities using a haptic localization task. As a first aim, we examined the strategies used to solve this haptic task. Secondly, we explored whether irrelevant visual information influenced adults' spatial-scaling performance. Thirty-two adults were asked to locate targets as presented in maps on a larger or same-sized referent space. Maps varied in size in accordance with different scaling factors (1:4, 1:2, 1:1), whereas the referent space was constant in size throughout the experimental session. The availability of irrelevant, non-informative vision was manipulated by blindfolding half of the participants prior to the experiment (condition without non-informative vision), whereas the other half were able to see their surroundings with the stimuli being hidden behind a curtain (condition with non-informative vision). Analyses with absolute errors (after correcting for reversal errors) as the dependent variable revealed a significant interaction of the scaling factor and non-informative vision condition. Adults in the blindfolded condition showed constant errors and response times irrespective of scaling factor. Such a response pattern indicates the usage of relative strategies. Adults in the curtain condition showed a linear increase in errors with higher scaling factors, whereas their response times remained constant. This pattern of results supports the usage of absolute strategies or mental transformation strategies. Overall, our results indicate different scaling strategies depending on the availability of non-informative vision, highlighting the strong influence of (even irrelevant) vision on adults' haptic processing.

Do Left and Right Matter for Haptic Recognition of Familiar Objects?

Two experiments were carried out to examine the effects of dominant right versus non-dominant left exploration hand and left versus right object orientation on haptic recognition of familiar objects. In experiment 1, participants named 48 familiar objects in two blocks. There was no dominant-hand advantage to naming objects haptically and there was no interaction between exploration hand and object orientation. Furthermore, priming of naming was not reduced by changes of either object orientation or exploration hand. To test whether these results were attributable to a failure to encode object orientation and exploration hand, experiment 2 replicated experiment 1 except that the unexpected task in the second block was to decide whether either exploration hand or object orientation had changed relative to the initial naming block. Performance on both tasks was above chance, demonstrating that this information had been encoded into long-term haptic representations following the initial block of naming. Thus when identifying familiar objects, the haptic processing system can achieve object constancy efficiently across hand changes and object-orientation changes, although this information is often stored even when it is task-irrelevant.

Processing approaches to cognition: the impetus from the levels-of-processing framework

Processing approaches to cognition have a long history, from act psychology to the present, but perhaps their greatest boost was given by the success and dominance of the levels-of-processing framework. We review the history of processing approaches, and explore the influence of the levels-of-processing approach, the procedural approach advocated by Paul Kolers, and the transfer-appropriate processing framework. Processing approaches emphasise the procedures of mind and the idea that memory storage can be usefully conceptualised as residing in the same neural units that originally processed information at the time of encoding. Processing approaches emphasise the unity and interrelatedness of cognitive processes and maintain that they can be dissected into separate faculties only by neglecting the richness of mental life. We end by pointing to future directions for processing approaches.

Relational learning with and without awareness: transitive inference using nonverbal stimuli in humans

Learning complex relationships among items and representing them flexibly have been shown to be highly similar in function and structure to conscious forms of learning. However, it is unclear whether conscious learning is essential for the exhibition of flexibility in learning. Successful performance on the transitive inference task requires representational flexibility. Participants learned four overlapping premise pairs (A > B, B > C, C > D, D > E) that could be encoded separately or as a sequential hierarchy (A > B > C > D > E). Some participants (informed) were told prior to training that the task required an inference made from premise pairs. Other participants (uninformed) were told simply that they were to learn a series of pairs by trial and error. Testing consisted of unreinforced trials that included the non-adjacent pair, B versus D, to assess capacity for transitive inference. Not surprisingly, those in the informed condition outperformed those in the uninformed condition. After completion of training and testing, uninformed participants were given a postexperimental questionnaire to assess awareness of the task structure. In contrast with expectations, successful performance on the transitive inference task for uninformed participants does not depend on or correlate with postexperimental awareness. The present results suggest that relational learning tasks do not necessarily require conscious processes.