=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1419/paper0001
|storemode=property
|title=How Frames of Reference Prime Spatial Memory
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1419/paper0001.pdf
|volume=Vol-1419
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/eapcogsci/Andonova15
}}
==How Frames of Reference Prime Spatial Memory==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1419/paper0001.pdf
How Frames of Reference Prime Spatial Memory
Elena Andonova (eandonova@nbu.bg)
Department of Cognitive Science and Psychology, 21 Montevideo Street
Sofia, 1618, Bulgaria
Abstract (iii) The star is to the North (East, etc.) of the truck.
This study examined priming spatial memory by frames of
reference. Participants verified verbal descriptions of scenes For the purposes of this study, the distinction between
which depicted spatial relations among objects. The intrinsic intrinsic and relative frames of reference is important as
and relative frames of reference were used in the descriptions these two constitute the more common and habitual ways of
with varying degrees of veridicality. Descriptions in the two describing spatial relationships that do not involve large-
reference frames could either be equally distributed in terms scale space, both in English and in the language studied
of validity (50:50 ratio of true vs. false description) or were here, Bulgarian, as well as in most other European
biased towards one of the two spatial frames. Participants
were found to be sensitive not only to the spatial frame prime
languages. The terminological distinction between intrinsic
at the lower level of individual descriptions but also at the and relative FoRs follows from the tri-partite typological
more global level of overall reliability of the two descriptive scheme developed by Levinson and colleagues (Levinson,
schemas. These findings provide direct evidence that spatial 2003).
frames of reference can influence spatial memory and that this Research in the last decades has uncovered considerable
influence depends on how frequently a frame of reference is variation in the use of spatial frames of reference both
associated with valid and reliable information. across cultures and within individuals. Languages and
cultures differ in the degree to which one, two, or all three
Keywords: spatial frames of reference; spatial memory. of these frames of reference are available as a means of
description (for a brief summary, see Majid et al., 2004).
Introduction Spatial language processing on an individual level can be
affected by a number of features of the communicative
Spatial frames of reference (FoR) are ways of organizing situation (Schober, 1993, Goschler, Andonova, & Ross,
mentally and communicating verbally certain aspects of our 2008, Andonova, 2010), the nature of the objects in the
spatial knowledge. They represent coordinate systems used spatial scene and their relationship, for example whether
to compute and specify the location of objects with respect there is a functional component in addition to the geometric
to other objects. For example, the mutual positioning of the aspects of the relationship (Carlson-Radvansky &
three objects depicted in Figure 1(a) can be described in Radvansky, 1996, Coventry & Garrod, 2004, Andonova,
several ways in English depending on which object’s Tenbrink, & Coventry, 2010), as well as other
location is in the focus of our mental attention and our considerations. Features of the objects themselves also
communicative intention, i.e., which object is the located direct attention to the use of different reference frames, for
object, or locatum, and which other object in this visual example, when an object has no salient axis such as a cube
scene is selected as the reference object, or relatum. Such or a sphere, it is not common to employ the intrinsic frame
verbal descriptions typically entail a choice of a spatial (Landau, 1996). Whether and how others are perceived to be
frame of reference. For example, (i) below is a description interacting with the objects described can also lead to the
of the relationship between the star as the locatum and the use of different kinds of relative reference frames (Tversky
truck as the reference object in the intrinsic frame of & Hard, 2009).
reference while (ii) is a description of the relationship in the Among the communicative features that influence choices
relative frame of reference: of frames of reference are interlocutors’ identity,
conversational roles, and previous verbal descriptions
(i) The star is behind the truck. employed by oneself or by others in the communicative
(ii) The star is to the right of the truck. exchange (Schober, 1998; Watson, Pickering & Branigan,
2004). Similar effects of interlocutors and their descriptive
An intrinsic frame of reference is object-centered while a choices are also found with spatial perspective (egocentric
relative frame of reference is viewer/speaker dependent, vs. allocentric, route vs. survey perspective, etc.). In a series
also construed as egocentric. There is one further possibility of confederate paradigm experiments on describing routes
— describing the relationship in an absolute frame of on schematic maps, choice of spatial perspective was
reference, independent of viewing position, etc., using some influenced by the use of perspective of the dialogic partner,
kind of fixed bearings, as in (iii) below, in this example, both before and after they switched perspective (Andonova,
cardinal directions: 2010). Perspective priming did not occur, however, when
partners used perspective inconsistently. How and why
36
spatial language choice is affected by previous descriptions influence of verbalization as an extraneous variable. On the
is still debatable, in particular, the degree to which such other hand, verbally labeling entities and relationships may
effects are consistent with explanations via automatic low- enhance subsequent memory episodes and verbalization
level priming mechanisms (Pickering & Garrod, 2004) vs. may occur even if not required explicitly. Spatial frames of
alignment or coordination of representations with a stronger reference may prime memory related behaviors. This was
strategic element (Clark, 1996), or a combination of both one of the main driving forces behind the research reported
(Branigan, Pickering, Pearson, & McLean, 2010). here.
Does choice or availability of frames of reference, A second basis for motivation of this research is related to
however, play a role in cognitive processes beyond language investigating how people make choices between two
use? Variation in language use of frames of reference has schemes of description in a way that is not only flexible but
been indicated to associate with, if not lead to, cross- also sensitive to and informed by the relative probabilities
linguistic and cross-cultural differences in spatial reasoning of success associated with the use of one or the other. For
and in tasks involving memory for the spatial configuration that reason, we introduced diverging degrees of veridicality
of objects, for motion trajectories and path-direction (Majid associated with individual frames of reference as part of the
et al., 2004, Haun, Rapold, Janzen, & Levinson, 2011). experimental design. Participants studied a series of visual
Such studies indicate that different non-linguistic FoRs are scenes involving three objects in a certain spatial
used to accomplish similar tasks and cognitive goals, and relationship and verified a verbal description of the visual
that these non-linguistic FoRs align with the preferred FoR scene that was expressive of either an intrinsic or a relative
of the language spoken by the people executing the frame of reference. In addition, the description was either a
reasoning and spatial memory tasks. However, such truthful and valid description of the scene or a false (invalid)
Whorfian effects and explanations have met with criticism description within the given frame of reference. The
(Li & Gleitman, 2002) and are far from being clearly important manipulation here was that participants were
established. The question remains whether different spatial randomly assigned to one of three possible Bias conditions.
frames of reference may exert an influence in non-linguistic In all three conditions, half of the descriptions were in the
cognitive tasks and to what degree, if so. intrinsic frame of reference and the other half were in the
The literature on spatial memory has examined the relative frame of reference. In the neutral or baseline
distinction between two frames of reference in spatial condition, each of the two frames was associated with the
memory (for example, Mou & McNamara, 2002, Nardini, same equal probability of being valid or invalid, i.e., half of
Burgess, Breckenridge, & Atkinson, 2006). One type of the intrinsic descriptions were valid descriptions of the
representation is egocentric in that it encodes an object’s relationship in the scene, and the other half were invalid.
relation to the agent/self, and the other is allocentric and The same 50:50 ratio applied to the alternative relative
encodes a location with respect to an external frame of frame of reference. However, the other two conditions were
reference such as would be provided by landmarks, for not neutral but contained a positive bias towards one of the
example. Mou & MacNamara (2002) have provided frames and a negative bias towards its alternative. This was
evidence that spatial memories are organized around achieved by manipulating the validity of the descriptions as
intrinsic (object-derived) frames of reference, which are explained below in the Method section.
selected on the basis of egocentric experience and
environmental cues. Using the array rotation paradigm, Method
Nardini et al. (2006) traced the developmental trajectories The experimental design included three independent
for use of different reference frames in spatial memory in variables: Frame of reference for the verbal prime (Intrinsic
children between 3 and 6 years of age and found that the vs. Relative), Veridicality of the statement (True or False),
viewpoint-independent recall based only on the array and its and Bias condition (No bias, Intrinsic FoR Bias and Relative
nearby landmarks emerged relatively late at around 5 years. FoR bias). The two dependent variables were based on
Furthermore, this later-developing ability utilizing object- participants’ responses to the study phase (verification
referenced (intrinsic) representations was not found to accuracy) and the test phase (placement choice) of the
depend on verbal encodings. All in all, studies have experimental procedure. Placement in the test phase was in
underlined the role of intrinsic representations in spatial one of two positions, a binary choice of placement
memory. consistent either with the intrinsic FoR or with the relative
Less is known, however, about the relationship between FoR, and the ratio of choosing a position with the intrinsic
verbal descriptive choices in terms of frames of reference FoR was used as the dependent measure (Fig. 2).
and subsequent memory for the spatial relationships Three hypotheses were derived in relation to the
described. Can the frame of reference used in naming a experimental variables. First, the placement choices in the
spatial relationship affect memory for it? To the best of our test phase for individual visual scenes were expected to be
knowledge, the possible influence of the frames of reference affected by the spatial frame of reference encountered for
as a descriptive choice on the accuracy and/or flexibility of the scenes during the study phase. Second, we reasoned that
spatial memory has not been examined systematically. In the veridicality of description in the study phase would also
fact, it is common for spatial memory studies to exclude the leave a trace on participants’ placement choices in that valid
37
descriptions in a given frame of reference during the study
phase could be more easily recalled and used in the
placement choices during the test phase than invalid ones.
Finally, we hypothesized an interaction between the frame
of reference of the prime in the study phase and bias
condition as a variable. Given that the intrinsic and relative
frames of reference were designed here to be associated
with different degrees of veridicality, the priming influence
of the specific frame of reference used could be weaker or
stronger depending on the reliability of the reference frame.
Figure 1: Examples of image stimuli with the preceding
statement which could be either true (a) or false (b).
Participants
28 participants (12 men and 16 women) took part in the The three objects in the scenes were selected in the
experiment. They were university students between the ages following way. The central object was either an animal or an
of 20 and 35 years old who were volunteers and/or inanimate object (vehicles, chairs, etc.) that had a clear
participated in exchange for course credit. Their mean age front-back axis asymmetry so that statements phrased in the
was 26.68 years. All were native speakers of Bulgarian. intrinsic FoR could be validated. The other two objects, on
the other hand, had no clear fronts, backs, or sides, i.e., for
Stimuli the purposes of this study they were non-axial. They did
The stimuli consisted of 32 target and 5 practice items. An have a clear vertical axis which, however, was irrelevant
item comprised a simple sentence (a verification statement) here. All scenes depicted the three objects as simple line
followed by a visual scene. The statement described the drawings in a similar style as illustrated above; the objects
position of the locatum with respect to the reference object had simple common names.
(relatum) and the visual part of the stimulus depicted three The stimuli for the test phase were derived from the
objects placed linearly in such a way that the two lateral original visual scenes from the study phase and involved
objects were at an equal distance from the central object. three differences. There were no objects present in the scene
The central object was the reference object, or relatum, and except for the central object, i.e., the reference object
one of the two lateral objects was the locatum whose (relatum) which was placed with the opposite orientation,
position relative to the relatum was in the focus of the facing in the opposite direction. The sentences lacked the
statement. The statements and visual scenes were shown in spatial terms but preserved the same objects named as in the
a series on the screen in a slide show. For example, below study phase. For example, the test phase stimuli for the
are two items each consisting of a statement followed by the examples in Figure 1 above were those depicted in Figure 2
visual scene it refers to (Fig. 1). below.
(a) The star ----- the truck.
(a) The star is behind the truck.
(b) The balloon ----- the goat.
(b) The balloon is to the left of the goat.
38
hundred and fifty by subtracting the number seven at each
step until they reached one hundred. Following this, during
the test phase, participants saw the truncated version of the
sentence and the middle object from the original study
phase scenes and were asked to indicate verbally and by
pointing the position of the locatum with respect to the
reference object as they recalled it from the study phase.
Results
Figure 2: Examples of image stimuli with the preceding Out of the twenty-eight participants, the data of one was not
textual prompt in the test phase. included in the analyses as this participant’s statement
verification accuracy was at chance level (53% accuracy). It
For the purposes of this experimental design, twelve was possible that she did not understand the task or was
stimuli lists were constructed, four for each of the three Bias confused for other reasons. Numbers of remaining
conditions. The 32 target stimuli (sentence-picture pairs) participants were equally distributed across the three bias
were placed in a pseudo-randomized order in each of them conditions, n = 9 in each.
with constraints on the number of stimuli in direct The data of the remaining twenty-seven participants were
succession that had the same Prime spatial frame, the same examined in repeated measures analyses of variance with
value for animacy, orientation of the central object, etc. No Bias condition as a between-participant variable and Prime
scene was repeated within any of the lists and no locatum (intrinsic vs. relative FoR), and veridicality (True vs. False
object was included in the target scenes more than once. statement) as within-participant independent variables.
The four lists for the neutral baseline condition contained Across analyses, veridicality did not exhibit any main
an equal number of stimuli in each of the two frames and effects and did not engage in interactions with other factors.
degree of veridicality was even distributed across the two Therefore, the data were collapsed to allow for the analyses
frames. The lists in the Intrinsic bias condition contained 16 of effects and interactions of the two main experimental
descriptions in the intrinsic frame 12 of which were valid variables, i.e., Bias condition and Prime FoR. The results of
(veridical) and the remaining four were invalid (false). They these analyses are reported here on mean participant values.
also contained 16 descriptions in the relative frame only 4 of First, the statement verification responses of participants
which were valid and the remaining 12 were invalid, thus were subjected to a repeated measures analysis of variance
manifesting a positive association between the intrinsic with prime (intrinsic vs. relative) as a within-participant
frame of reference and validity (veridicality) of description variable and bias condition (neutral, intrinsic bias, and
and a negative association between the use of the alternative relative bias) as a between-participant variable. Verification
relative frame of reference and validity of description. The accuracy ranged from 88.88% for the neutral condition after
lists in the Relative bias condition were constructed with the a relative prime to 96.53% for the relative bias condition
same ratio but in the opposite direction so as to induce a after an intrinsic prime. However, there were no reliable
positive bias towards the relative frame in terms of validity effects and no interactions emerged from this analysis.
of description and a negative bias against the intrinsic frame Next, a repeated measures analysis of variance with prime
of reference. All in all, each list contained an equal number (intrinsic vs. relative) as a within-participant variable and
of valid and invalid descriptions but the valid-invalid ratio bias condition (neutral, intrinsic bias, and relative bias) as a
for individual frames of reference varied across conditions. between-participant variable was conducted for the main
dependent variable in the memory part of the study – the
Procedure mean percent choice of intrinsic placement of the locatum
with respect to the relatum. As a reminder here, the
Participants saw the stimuli one at a time in a slide show on
orientation of the central object in the visual scenes was
a laptop screen. The experimental session was preceded by a
reversed from study to test phase. For example, if
short practice session. Responses were audio-recorded and
participants saw the goat in Fig. 1b facing to the right during
subsequently transcribed and coded for verification
the study phase, in the test phase they saw the goat facing
accuracy and frame of reference of the study phase
left and were asked to indicate where the locatum (here, the
response. After the practice trials, the 32 target trials were
balloon) was positioned in the scene they saw during the
presented in the study phase, in a sentence-picture
study phase. If participants indicated that the balloon was
combination each. In the study phase, participants were
left of or in front of the goat, this was coded as an intrinsic
asked to study the stimuli, read aloud the sentence
response, as it retained the intrinsic FoR relationship
description offered and verify verbally the validity of the
between locatum and relatum while violating the relative
description of the scene as presented in the sentence by
(viewing position) FoR of the participant. Alternatively, if
saying ‘Yes’ if it was valid and “No” if it was invalid. The
participants indicated that the balloon was to the right of or
study phase was followed by a distractor task where
behind the goat, this response was coded as retaining the
participants counted downwards from the number two-
39
relative FoR and it was in violation of the intrinsic FoR for Figure 3: Mean percent intrinsic placement after intrinsic
the original scene. On this basis, a unitary dependent or relative FoR primes in each of the three bias conditions.
variable was calculated which reflected the proportion of
Intrinsic FoR placement responses out of all responses made Discussion
by participants. The memory test phase responses were One of the main objectives of this study was to establish
included in the analyses only for those trials on which a if prior descriptions of spatial relations in visual scenes via
correct verification response had been produced in the first specific spatial frames of reference could affect the memory
study phase of the experiment (excluding seventy-three for these relations in a test phase. The findings reveal that
individual trials across all participants). this was indeed the case. Overall during recall, participants
The repeated measures analysis on the mean percent of chose placements in the intrinsic object-centered frame
intrinsic placement responses revealed no effect of Bias more frequently if they had read and verified a description
condition, a significant main effect of prime FoR, (F (1, 24) = of the relationship in that frame when studying the visual
16.99, p < .001, ηp2 = .415) and a significant prime FoR by scenes than if they had read and verified descriptions in the
Bias condition interaction, (F (1, 24) = 5.87, p = .008, ηp2 = alternative relative frame of reference. The priming effect
.328). The mean percent values for each of the six was to the magnitude of a 15% difference between intrinsic
conditions are listed in Table 1 below. prime trials and relative prime trials in the neutral no-bias
condition where the two frames of reference were associated
Table 1: Mean percent intrinsic placement in the test equally with success or failure. Thus, importantly, the
phase as a function of Bias Condition and Prime (FoR). priming effect of prior verbal FoR description was found in
the baseline condition and may generalize to a broader range
Bias Condition Intrinsic Relative of phenomena.
Prime Prime Furthermore, in this design differences among the frames
Neutral baseline (no bias) 51.77 36.90 of reference were introduced in terms of the degree of their
Intrinsic FoR Bias 54.81 31.86 association with veridicality of description, or in other
Relative FoR Bias 39.58 40.92 words, on the validity and reliability of descriptions in the
intrinsic and in the relative frames, respectively, resulting in
two conditions with a bias. The hypothesized interaction
Further, we analyzed whether participants’ placement between condition bias and frame of reference prime on
responses differed for each of the three experimental bias subsequent spatial memory choices was confirmed in the
conditions on the proportion intrinsic placements as a analysis of data. The spatial description priming effect was
function of the frame of reference the prime was in (intrinsic shown to differ across bias conditions. The fifteen percent
in front of or behind vs. relative left or right). A series of difference in the baseline was increased to a 23% priming
paired samples t-tests were performed with prime FoR as a magnitude in the Intrinsic bias condition in line with
within-participant independent variable and mean percent expectations that the intrinsic FoR would be experienced as
intrinsic placement during the test phase as the dependent more reliable in that condition than the relative FoR. The
variable. These analyses revealed that there were significant opposite was the case in the relative bias condition—the
differences in placement between intrinsic and relative priming effect dissipated and participants’ memory was
prime trials in the neutral no-bias condition (t (8) = 2.80, p = unaffected by the verbal prime’s frame of reference. If we
.023) and in the intrinsic bias condition (t (8) = 4.65, p = consider that choices in the baseline (default) no-bias
.002) but none in the relative bias condition. condition were under the influence of the prime, these
results indicate that the intrinsic FoR was inhibited in the
relative bias condition while it was not, or even, as a whole,
it was boosted in the intrinsic bias condition. These
differences across conditions reveal that participants were
sensitive to the level of reliability of the two frames of
reference used in the descriptions even though they were not
explicit in any way, and the distribution of validity varied
across the two frames only implicitly in terms of the overall
composition of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ (valid and invalid description)
trials during the verification/study phase of the experiment.
Participants were able to acquire this kind of statistical
information during study inadvertently, a form of statistical
learning (Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996).
The third hypothesis that veridicality (validity) of the
description in interaction with primes would also lead to
differences in placement choices was not confirmed in this
analysis. If it had any influence at all, it must have been too
40
subtle to make an impact on participants’ behavior, to more ecologically valid field studies is a matter of future
especially in view of the combined influence of prime frame research endeavor.
of reference and bias condition. The role of veridicality of
specific descriptions, however, was not lost entirely, as it References
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