The role of landmarks in the development of object location memory

In order to locate objects in an enclosed environment animals and humans use visual and non-visual distance and direction cues. In the present study, we were interested in children’s ability to relocate an object on the basis of self-motion cues and local and distal color cues for orientation. Five to 9-yearold children were tested on an object location memory task in which, between presentation and test, the availability of local cues and distal cues were manipulated. Additionally, participants’ viewpoint could be changed. Interestingly, children’s overall performance (i.e. absolute distance score) showed that they relied on self-motion cues in case landmarks were not present. Moreover, angular errors indicated that children relied on the orientation provided by distal landmarks when changing viewpoint. These results are discussed in terms of the adaptive combination model, proposed by Newcombe and Huttenlocher (2006), which states that different information sources are weighted differently over the course of development

The role of landmarks in the development of object location memory

In order to locate objects in an enclosed environment animals and humans use visual and non-visual distance and direction cues. In the present study, we were interested in children’s ability to relocate an object on the basis of self-motion cues and local and distal color cues for orientation. Five to 9-yearold children were tested on an object location memory task in which, between presentation and test, the availability of local cues and distal cues were manipulated. Additionally, participants’ viewpoint could be changed. Interestingly, children’s overall performance (i.e. absolute distance score) showed that they relied on self-motion cues in case landmarks were not present. Moreover, angular errors indicated that children relied on the orientation provided by distal landmarks when changing viewpoint. These results are discussed in terms of the adaptive combination model, proposed by Newcombe and Huttenlocher (2006), which states that different information sources are weighted differently over the course of development

Categorical en coordinate spatial relations from different viewpoints in an object location memory task

In order to represent spatial relations between objects in a scene we may adopt different reference frames: a visual snapshot (‘integrated picture’), an egocentric (body-referenced) and/or an allocentric (external-referenced) reference frame. These reference frames rely upon different neural structures. Children use different frames of reference more effectively with age, possibly showing the functional maturation of these neural structures. In the present study, children 5 to 10 years were tested on an object-location memory scene recognition task in which, on some trials, the viewpoint between presentation and test was changed, either over a small angle or over a large angle to dissociate the use of different frames of reference. Besides children’s ability to make a correct ‘coarse’ judgment of an object’s location in the scene under different viewpoint conditions, we were interested in children’s ability to reproduce categorical and coordinate spatial relations after a viewpoint change. Although participants performed worst on the large viewpoint-change condition, which measured participant’ use of an allocentric reference frame, in all task conditions mean performance was above chance level. This suggested that the first five years reflect an important time-period for maturational changes in the neural systems related to reference frame use, and the age differences in overall performance might show that small maturational changes take place afterwards. In addition, participants performed better on the categorical trials compared to the coordinate trials, showing that children use these relations to memorize object locations

Registered Replication Report: Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998)

Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998) reported that participants primed with a category associated with intelligence (“professor”) subsequently performed 13% better on a trivia test than participants primed with a category associated with a lack of intelligence (“soccer hooligans”). In two unpublished replications of this study designed to verify the appropriate testing procedures, Dijksterhuis, van Knippenberg, and Holland observed a smaller difference between conditions (2%–3%) as well as a gender difference: Men showed the effect (9.3% and 7.6%), but women did not (0.3% and −0.3%). The procedure used in those replications served as the basis for this multilab Registered Replication Report. A total of 40 laboratories collected data for this project, and 23 of these laboratories met all inclusion criteria. Here we report the meta-analytic results for those 23 direct replications (total N = 4,493), which tested whether performance on a 30-item general-knowledge trivia task differed between these two priming conditions (results of supplementary analyses of the data from all 40 labs, N = 6,454, are also reported). We observed no overall difference in trivia performance between participants primed with the “professor” category and those primed with the “hooligan” category (0.14%) and no moderation by gender

Registered Replication Report:Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998)

Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998) reported that participants primed with a category associated with intelligence (professor) subsequently performed 13% better on a trivia test than participants primed with a category associated with a lack of intelligence (soccer hooligans). In two unpublished replications of this study designed to verify the appropriate testing procedures, Dijksterhuis, van Knippenberg, and Holland observed a smaller difference between conditions (2%-3%) as well as a gender difference: Men showed the effect (9.3% and 7.6%), but women did not (0.3% and -0.3%). The procedure used in those replications served as the basis for this multilab Registered Replication Report. A total of 40 laboratories collected data for this project, and 23 of these laboratories met all inclusion criteria. Here we report the meta-analytic results for those 23 direct replications (total N = 4,493), which tested whether performance on a 30-item general-knowledge trivia task differed between these two priming conditions (results of supplementary analyses of the data from all 40 labs, N = 6,454, are also reported). We observed no overall difference in trivia performance between participants primed with the professor category and those primed with the hooligan category (0.14%) and no moderation by gender