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    An article on spatial orientation
    From: Patrick Goold
    Date: 2012 Feb 20, 07:43 -0500
    Some members of nav-list might be interested the article abstracted below:

    Is the Map in Our Head Oriented North?

    Julia Frankenstein1,2, Betty J. Mohler1, Heinrich H. Bülthoff1,3, and Tobias Meilinger1


    Abstract

    We examined how a highly familiar environmental space—one's city of residence—is

    represented in memory. Twenty-six participants faced a photo-realistic virtual model of their

    hometown and completed a task in which they pointed to familiar target locations in various

    body orientations. Each participant's performance was most accurate when he or she was facing

    north, and errors increased as participants’ deviation from a north-facing orientation increased.

    Pointing errors and latencies were not related to the distance between participants’ initial

    locations and the target locations. Our results are inconsistent with accounts of orientation-free

    memory and with theories assuming that the storage of spatial knowledge depends on local

    reference frames. Although participants recognized familiar local views in their initial locations,

    their strategy for pointing relied on a single, north-oriented reference frame that was likely

    acquired from maps rather than experience from daily exploration. Even though participants had

    spent significantly more time navigating the city than looking at maps, their pointing behavior

    seemed to rely on a north-oriented mental map.



    The original article is published as a research report in Psychological Science (DOI: 10.1177/0956797611429467).  I can send you a copy if you do not have access to this journal.


    Best regards,

    Patrick

    --
    Dr. Patrick Goold
    Department of Philosophy
    Virginia Wesleyan College
    Norfolk, VA 23502
    757 455 3357

       
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