Mental Representations of Spatial and Nonspatial Relations

9222002麦克纳马拉这项研究将调查人类记忆的各个方面。其中一系列实验将研究空间记忆的本质。一系列九个实验将试图确定空间记忆是“定向特定的”还是“定向自由的”。在方向专有表达中，位置是在视图专有参照框架中指定的，并且该表达具有规范方向。一个人对地图或地球的记忆是一个特定于方位的表征的例子，因为它是以北方为方向的，在顶部。另一方面，无方向表示不依赖于视图，也没有规范的方向。这种表征的一个例子是一个人的家内部的记忆；这种记忆通常没有规范的取向。这些类型的记忆之间的一个明显区别是，当我们学习空间布局时，我们对它有多少个视角(通常只有一个视角适用于地图，但几个视角适用于自然环境)。这些实验将检验这一解释以及对小空间和大空间记忆差异的其他解释。另一个由四个实验组成的系列将调查距离估计中不对称的原因。先前的研究表明，当人们估计与记忆的距离时，从突出的地标到不太突出的位置(例如从华盛顿纪念碑到养老金大楼)的估计要大于从不太突出的建筑到地标的估计。拟议中的实验的目标是确定为什么会出现这些不对称性。这些对空间记忆的研究将提供关于我们识别场景和在熟悉和陌生环境中导航的基本机制的关键新知识。这些知识将阐明个体空间能力差异的原因，并将有助于自由移动机器人系统的发展。第二个实验将调查联想启动的原因。当人们从记忆中检索信息时，性能通常会受到以前的检索操作或检索发生的上下文的影响。例如，在词汇判断任务中，必须判断一串字母是单词还是非单词(如blit)。已有广泛的文献记载，当单词之前是相关单词(例如，医院医生)时，对该单词的词汇决定比当该单词之前是不相关单词(例如，图书馆医生)时更快、更准确。这种促进作用被称为“启动”，几乎在所有需要记忆提取的任务中都会发生。这项研究的目标是检验联想启动的各种理论。启动现象的普遍存在表明它是由记忆提取的一种基本机制引起的。因此，对启动原因的理解将为人类记忆的基本特性提供重要的新见解。***

9222002 MCNAMARA This research will investigate aspects of human memory. One line of experiments will investigate the nature of spatial memory. A series of nine experiments will attempt to determine whether spatial memories are "orientation specific" or "orientation free." In orientation-specific representations, locations are specified in view-specific reference frames and the representation has a canonical orientation. One's memory of a map or of the globe is an example of an orientation-specific representation because it is oriented with north at the top. Orientation-free representations, on the other hand, are not view dependent and do not have a canonical orientation. An example of such a representation is memory of the interior of one's home; such memories typically do not have a canonical orientation. An obvious difference between these types of memories is the number of perspectives we had on the spatial layout when it was learned (typically only one for a map, but several for natural environments). The experiments will test this explanation and other explanations of the differences between memories of small- and large-scale spaces. Another series of four experiments will investigate the causes of asymmetries in distance estimations. Previous research has shown that when people estimate distances from memory, estimates from salient landmarks to less salient locations (e.g., from the Washington Monument to the Pension Building) are larger than estimates from the less salient building to the landmark. The goal of the proposed experiments is to determine why these asymmetries occur. These studies of spatial memory will provide crucial new knowledge about the basic mechanisms that underlie our ability to recognize scenes and to navigate in familiar and unfamiliar environments. This knowledge will shed light on the causes of individual differences in spatial ability, and will aid in the development of freely moving robotic systems. The second line of experiments will investigate the causes of associative priming. When people retrieve information from memory, performance is often affected by previous retrieval operations or by the context in which the retrieval takes place. In the lexical decision task, for example, one must decide whether a string of letters is a word or a nonword (e.g., blit). It has been widely documented that lexical decisions on a word are faster and more accurate when the word is preceded by an associated word (e.g., hospital-doctor) than when the word is preceded by an unassociated word (e.g., library-doctor). This facilitation is called "priming," and it occurs in nearly all tasks that require memory retrieval. The goal of this line of research is to test various theories of associative priming. The ubiquity of priming indicates that it is caused by a fundamental mechanism of memory retrieval. Thus, an understanding of the causes of priming will provide important new insights into basic properties of human memory. ***