This project will address the neural correlates of human spatial memory by using fMRI techniques to explore how people learn and remember information about spatial relationships under a variety of learning conditions. The behavioral literature has suggested a variety of difference processes within the realm of spatial learning and memory; this project is designed to explore those differences. Experiments 1 and 2 test the hypothesis that differences between route and survey spatial knowledge will be manifested in different brain activity during both learning and recollection. Experiment 3 explores spatial learning in different modalities by comparing brain activation during recollection after visual versus tactile learning. This experiment tests the hypothesis that learning in different modalities will produce different areas of brain activation during recollection. Experiments 4 and 5 focus on accessing information from memory based on orientation or heading in space. When a space is learned from particular orientations, memory can be tested for the learned orientations and novel orientations. These experiments test the hypothesis that brain activation for accessing familiar orientations can be distinguished from brain activation for accessing novel orientations. Together, these studies will extend our current knowledge of how spatial information is stored and accessed in the brain by indentifying neural correlates of spatial memory and its subprocesses. By exploring different facets of spatial experience a comprehensive and neurologically plausible model of spatial memory can be developed.
| Shelton, Amy L; McNamara, Timothy P (2004) Orientation and perspective dependence in route and survey learning. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 30:158-70 |
| Shelton, A L; McNamara, T P (2001) Systems of spatial reference in human memory. Cogn Psychol 43:274-310 |
