Retrieving Information about Locations.
Abstract
In experiments measuring latencies to answer questions about relative locations, Lea (1975) supported a hypothesis that locations are represented in a list ordered according to adjacency relations, and Hintzman, O'Dell, and Arndt (1979) supported a hypothesis that distances and directions between objects are represented. We propose a hypothesis that locations are represented using a spatial schema, and that procedures for answering questions include processes that operate on positions in the spatial schema. We hypothesize further that different performance observed by Hintzman et al and Lea can be interpreted as a difference of retrieval procedures induced by differences in the ways that questions were presented. We conducted an experiment in which different questions were asked in different conditions about locations of objects, where the tasks were comparable in ways that Hintzman et al's task and Lea's task were not. Latencies in the two conditions differed in the same way as the earlier findings, lending support to the hypothesis of different retrieval procedures induced by differences in the question-answering tasks. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 26, 1981
- Accession Number
- ADA095137
Entities
People
- Alexander W. Siegel
- James G. Greeno
- James J. Mokwa
- Maria E. Magone
Organizations
- University of Pittsburgh