Research on all tested vertebrates indicates that geometric information plays a special role when organisms reorient in their environment. Some researchers have argued that geometric information is processed automatically, while landmark information is processed more slowly. These conclusions of the course of reorientation processing have been drawn from research that tested organisms accuracy in locating targets in experimental environments. However, inferences of the course of processing are not logical extensions of physical reorientation paradigms. To this end, the present research employs the psychological refractory period paradigm to investigate, over two experiments, the precise stages of processing that humans utilize when encoding an environment. The data confirm previous research by demonstrating an underadditive effect of response time across stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) for geometric trials and an additive effect for landmark trials, suggesting that geometric information is processed during the first stage of processing, and landmark information during the second.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:AEU.10048/1086 |
| Date | 06 1900 |
| Creators | Duffels, Brian |
| Contributors | Dixon, Peter (Psychology), Friedman, Alinda (Psychology), Spetch, Marcia (Psychology), Bulitko, Vadim (Computing Science) |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 778262 bytes, application/pdf |
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