The research described in this proposal investigates human spatial memory. The long-term goal of the project is to understand how spatial relations among objects in the environment are represented in memory and how remembered spatial relations are used to guide navigation.
The specific aims of the project are to advance the scientific understanding of (a) how location and orientation are updated in memory as people locomote in a previously learned environment; (b) the mental representations and processes used in spatial pointing tasks; (c) the extent to which spatial relations are represented more strongly in directions congruent than in directions incongruent with intrinsic axes of a spatial layout; (d) the acquisition of memories of largescale environments; (e) whether learning a new environment produces multiple representations in memory; and (t) the nature of spatial memories acquired from non-visual modalities, and how they compare to spatial memories acquired visually. Participants will learn locations of objects in spaces ranging in size from a table-top to a large city park. Layouts will be learned by visual inspection, visually guided locomotion, or manual exploration without visual guidance. After learning the layouts, participants will take part in tasks that require them to point to target objects from their actual location or from imagined standing locations and facing directions, to discriminate familiar and novel views of a recently learned spatial layout from views of other spatial layouts, or to decide whether objects are in one layout vs. another. Individual differences, including gender-related effects, will be examined in all experiments. This basic science provides a theoretical and empirical foundation for understanding individual differences in spatial ability, and the debilitating deficits in spatial memory created by stroke, traumatic brain injury, and dementia.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01MH057868-07
Application #
6932083
Study Section
Biobehavioral and Behavioral Processes 3 (BBBP)
Program Officer
Kurtzman, Howard S
Project Start
1998-04-01
Project End
2008-07-31
Budget Start
2005-08-01
Budget End
2006-07-31
Support Year
7
Fiscal Year
2005
Total Cost
$226,500
Indirect Cost
Name
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
004413456
City
Nashville
State
TN
Country
United States
Zip Code
37212
Riecke, Bernhard E; McNamara, Timothy P (2017) Where you are affects what you can easily imagine: Environmental geometry elicits sensorimotor interference in remote perspective taking. Cognition 169:1-14
Zhang, Hui; Mou, Weimin; McNamara, Timothy P et al. (2014) Connecting spatial memories of two nested spaces. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 40:191-202
Rump, Björn; McNamara, Timothy P (2013) Representations of interobject spatial relations in long-term memory. Mem Cognit 41:201-13
Li, Xiaoou; Mou, Weimin; McNamara, Timothy P (2012) Retrieving enduring spatial representations after disorientation. Cognition 124:143-55
Zhang, Hui; Mou, Weimin; McNamara, Timothy P (2011) Spatial updating according to a fixed reference direction of a briefly viewed layout. Cognition 119:419-29
Sluzenski, Julia; McNamara, Timothy P (2011) The organization of room geometry and object layout geometry in human memory. Psychon Bull Rev 18:758-66
Kelly, Jonathan W; McNamara, Timothy P (2010) Reference frames during the acquisition and development of spatial memories. Cognition 116:409-20
Mou, Weimin; Zhang, Hui; McNamara, Timothy P (2009) Novel-view scene recognition relies on identifying spatial reference directions. Cognition 111:175-86
Kelly, Jonathan W; McNamara, Timothy P; Bodenheimer, Bobby et al. (2009) Individual differences in using geometric and featural cues to maintain spatial orientation: cue quantity and cue ambiguity are more important than cue type. Psychon Bull Rev 16:176-81
Li, Xiaoou; Mou, Weimin; McNamara, Timothy P (2009) Intrinsic orientation and study viewpoint in recognizing spatial structure of a shape. Psychon Bull Rev 16:518-23

Showing the most recent 10 out of 31 publications