Acquisition and utilization of spatial information: a preliminary study of the functional relationships between input stimuli and response type

Abstract

The objectives which were addressed in this research were: (1) an assessment of the relationships between stimulus presentation types and required responses in the processing of spatial information, including an evaluation of the extent to which a single factor assumption would be tenable; (2) an evaluation of the extent to which differences in performance and strategy between analogous auditory and visual presentation formats found in a previous study (Gilfillan, 1981) were generalizeable to other presentation formats and experimental conditions; and (3) an investigation of the correlations between certain individual difference measures and mapping performance. The results of the study demonstrated that there were considerable differences in performance between stimulus-response combinations, with some presentation formats resulting in much better performance than others for most response types. In spite of these important differences, however, performance across all conditions covaried such that a single factor provided an adequate representation of performance, supporting the single factor assumptions. The differences in performance and strategy previously found for analogous auditory and visual presentations were not completely generalizeable to the experimental conditions and the additional presentation formats evaluated in this study. The data suggested that performance differences noted between different modes of sensory presentation were related to the geometry of the arrays and the intrinsic complexity of the underlying presentation format, as well as to the sensory presentation mode. Previous findings of differences between performance for implicitly and explicitly presented information were confirmed. Significant correlations were found between mapping performance and the individual difference measures for verbal ability and field independence. No significant correlations were found between performance on the mapping task and a measure of visual memory, or self-assessed sense of direction or self-assessed exploratoriness, all three of which had been previously reported to be correlated with performance on spatial tasks. Self assessments of artistic ability and intuitiveness correlated significantly with performance on the mapping task.