Perceived spatial presence and body orientation affect the recall of out-of-sight places in an immersive sketching experiment.

Publisher: Springer-Verlag Country of Publication: Germany NLM ID: 0435062 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1430-2772 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 03400727 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Psychol Res Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: Berlin, New York, Springer-Verlag.

Orientation* ; Mental Recall*; Humans

The orientation of sketch maps of remote but familiar city squares produced from memory has been shown to depend on the distance and airline direction from the production site to the remembered square (position-dependent recall, Röhrich et al. in PLoS One 9(11): e112793, 2014). Here, we present a virtual reality version of the original experiment and additionally study the role of body orientation. Three main points can be made: First, "immersive sketching" is a novel and useful paradigm in which subjects sketch maps live on paper while being immersed in virtual reality. Second, the original effect of position-dependent recall was confirmed, indicating that the sense of being present at a particular location, even if generated in a virtual environment, suffices to bias the imagery of distant places. Finally, the orientation of the produced sketch maps depended also on the body orientation of the subjects. At each production site, body orientation was controlled by varying the position of the live feed in the virtual environment, such that subjects had to turn towards the prescribed direction. Position-dependent recall is strongest if subjects are aligned with the airline direction to the target and virtually goes away if they turn in the opposite direction. We conclude that the representation of out-of-sight target places depends on both the current airline direction to the target and the body orientation.
(© 2023. The Author(s).)

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381713393 Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Date Created: 20231011 Date Completed: 20240214 Latest Revision: 20240314

20240314

PMC10858104

10.1007/s00426-023-01877-x

37819501