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Many non-geographic factors influence spatial judgments, which implies that spatial representations are not metrically veridical. We investigated the influence of social and political factors in the geopolitical context of Cyprus–an island divided since 1974 into the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities in the north and south, respectively. Participants (249 Greek Cypriots, 322 Turkish Cypriots) indicated their familiarity with 19 towns, estimated town locations, and the straight-line distance between those towns. They also rated their attitudes toward the other community. Cypriots underestimated distances and contracted the placement of towns within the other community more so than within their own community. Moreover, those more willing to live together with Cypriots from the other community underestimated distances between towns, whereas those less willing to live together overestimated distances. The results support the notion that representations of global-scale environments have multi-faceted origins, including sociopolitical factors not usually associated with spatial representations.

The perception of time is a subjective experience influenced by various factors such as individual psychology, external stimuli, and personal experiences, and it is often assessed with the use of the reproduction task that involves individuals estimating and reproducing the duration of specific time intervals. In the current study, we examined the ability of 97 musically trained participants to reproduce the durations of temporal intervals that were filled with music or speech stimuli. The results revealed a consistent pattern of durations being underestimated, and an association was observed between the duration of musical training and the level of accuracy in reproducing both music and speech tracks. In addition, speech tracks were overall reproduced more accurately, and as longer, than music tracks. Structural models suggested the presence of two, highly correlated, dimensions of time perception for speech and music stimuli that were related to the duration of musical training, but not with self-reported rhythm perception. The possible effects of arousal and pleasantness of stimuli on time perception are discussed within the framework of an internal clock model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a direction-giving task, we examine whether a high-level constraint--the task partners' relative body alignment--influences spatial language use and task accuracy. In 32 pairs, task partners interacted in two conditions: for one route description, direction givers (DGs) and direction followers (DFs) sat side-by-side ("aligned" condition), and for another they sat opposite one another ("counter-aligned" condition). After each description, DFs drew the route on a map. When pairs were counter-aligned (vs. aligned), DGs increased their use of expressions from a survey perspective, using more frequently terms such as "east-west." When counter-aligned, DFs also used more words per conversational turn, which was taken to reflect the increased difficulty of coordinating in that condition. Still, in terms of task performance, the accuracy of DFs' drawings was unaffected by the partners' body alignment or spatial language use; it was only predicted by the DGs' spatial ability. We argue that, because direction giving emphasizes accuracy, task partners invest in strategies that contribute to mutual understanding (e.g., recaps of the route by the DF at the end, evidenced by shifts in language use over time). Thus, body alignment in direction giving impacts coordination difficulty and spatial language use, but it does not singularly influence task performance.

When speakers coordinate with one another, they have available a range of alternatives for conceptualizing and describing spatial relationships. To understand the features of successful communication in collaborative spatial tasks, it is important to identify factors that shape speakers' linguistic choices and evaluate them in relation to task success. In this article we examine how description strategies--in particular, references to global versus local conceptualizations of spatial relationships--change over time, how the use of these strategies is related to both contextual cues and the partner's feedback, and finally how these factors affect communicative success in terms of efficiency and accuracy in the task. In the dialogue task we used, Directors described from memory a spatial layout with intrinsic properties to a Matcher who reconstructed it based on those descriptions. We found that global description strategies and feedback from the Matcher that contributed to grounding (such as recaps) predicted better task performance, whereas local description strategies and queries from the Matcher predicted poorer performance. Importantly, the strategy adopted by pairs early in the dialogue predicted their ultimate accuracy in reconstructing the layout. This work underscores that to unpack the complex factors that contribute to successful communication, it is important to consider not only the linguistic strategies that speakers use, but also how these unfold over time and are shaped by interactive processes, such as those reflected by the partner's feedback.

Two experiments investigated whether visual cues influence spatial reference frame selection for locations learned through touch. Participants experienced visual cues emphasizing specific environmental axes and later learned objects through touch. Visual cues were manipulated and haptic learning conditions were held constant. Imagined perspective taking when recalling touched objects was best from perspectives aligned with visually-defined axes, providing evidence for cross-sensory reference frame transfer. These findings advance spatial memory theory by demonstrating that multimodal spatial information can be integrated within a common spatial representation. (Contains 4 figures.)

Recent models in spatial cognition posit that distinct memory systems are responsible for maintaining transient and enduring spatial relations. The authors used perspective-taking performance to assess the presence of these enduring and transient spatial memories for locations encoded through verbal descriptions. Across 3 experiments, spatial reasoning about immediate and remote environments was influenced by enduring, allocentric spatial memories. In contrast, transient, egocentric spatial memories influenced participants' spatial reasoning about immediate, but not remote, environments unless participants received specific imagery instructions. These findings provide support for theories proposing multiple spatial memory systems. Furthermore, these findings closely replicate previous results from studies with purely visual scenes, thereby providing converging evidence for functional equivalence between spatial representations maintaining visual and described locations. (Contains 5 figures.)

Four experiments investigated the conditions contributing to sensorimotor alignment effects (i.e., the advantage for spatial judgments from imagined perspectives aligned with the body). Through virtual reality technology, participants learned object locations around a room (learning room) and made spatial judgments from imagined perspectives aligned or misaligned with their actual facing direction. Sensorimotor alignment effects were found when testing occurred in the learning room but not after walking 3 m into a neighboring (novel) room. Sensorimotor alignment effects returned after returning to the learning room or after providing participants with egocentric imagery instructions in the novel room. Additionally, visual and spatial similarities between the test and learning environments were independently sufficient to cause sensorimotor alignment effects. Memory alignment effects, independent from sensorimotor alignment effects, occurred in all testing conditions. Results are interpreted in the context of two-system spatial memory theories positing separate representations to account for sensorimotor and memory alignment effects.

In 4 experiments, the authors examined the use of the hands in simple arithmetic tasks. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that pointing increases both accuracy and speed in counting arrays of items, whether those items are identical or distinctive. Experiment 3 demonstrated that individuals tend to nod their heads when not allowed to point and that nodding is associated with greater accuracy, suggesting that pointing is functional for reasons other than simply providing additional visual information. Experiment 4 examined changes in speech when adding arrays of digits, depending on whether participants were allowed to use their hands to manipulate the tokens on which the digits were presented. Taken together, the results of these experiments are consistent with recent research suggesting that gesture can serve cognitive functions and that the hands can support the binding of representational elements to their functional roles by providing phase markers for cyclic cognitive processes.