Mental Representations of Spatial and Nonspatial Relations

9222002 MCNAMARA 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。 一系列的九个实验将试图确定空间记忆是“定向特异性”还是“定向无关性”。" 在特定于方向的表示中，位置在特定于视图的参考系中指定，并且表示具有规范方向。 一个人对地图或地球仪的记忆是特定于方位的表征的一个例子，因为它是以北方为顶部的。 另一方面，无方向表示不依赖于视图，并且没有规范方向。 这种表征的一个例子是一个人的家的内部的记忆;这样的记忆通常没有规范的方向。 这两种记忆之间的一个明显区别是，我们在学习空间布局时所拥有的视角数量（通常只有一个地图，但自然环境有几个）。 实验将检验这个解释以及其他关于小尺度空间和大尺度空间记忆差异的解释。 另一系列的四个实验将研究距离估计不对称的原因。 先前的研究表明，当人们根据记忆估计距离时，从显著地标到不太显著的位置（例如，从华盛顿纪念碑到养老金大楼）都比估计的要大，从不太突出的建筑到地标。 所提出的实验的目标是确定为什么会发生这些不对称。 这些空间记忆的研究将为我们在熟悉和不熟悉的环境中识别场景和导航能力的基本机制提供至关重要的新知识。 这些知识将揭示空间能力个体差异的原因，并将有助于自由移动机器人系统的发展。 第二个实验将探讨联想启动的原因。 当人们从记忆中检索信息时，性能通常会受到先前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（例如，blit）。 已经广泛地证明，当单词前面有相关联的单词（例如， 医院-医生）而不是当该词前面有不相关的词时（例如，图书馆医生）。 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。 这一系列研究的目的是检验各种联想启动理论。 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，理解启动的原因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. ***