Spatial Updating in Intrinsic Frames of Reference

The present study investigates the properties of the spatial updating in terms of intrinsic frames of reference. We hypothesize that the efficiency of dynamically updating object-to-object relations is based on two main factors, a relatively stable frame of reference provided by the orienting object (or object array), and the behavioral significance (salience) level of the target objects. Three experiments were conducted using tasks of direction pointing. It was found that responses were significantly slower when the orienting object was constantly rotating. Given a relatively stable frame of reference, responses to the salient objects were faster than those to the non-salient objects when the number of salient objects was limited. The salience effect disappeared and reappeared in the absence and presence of a stable frame of reference, respectively. These findings indicated that spatial updating in intrinsic frame of reference is not automatic and is limited by the number of target objects.