The Role of Viewer Perspective

In the present study, we examined how people code object location when an object is hidden in an enclosed space. On object location tasks involving disorientation, viewers must code the location of an object in relation to the spatial environment because they cannot directly track their changing relation to the object. Recently, we showed that viewers also code their perspective relative to the entire space (inside vs. outside) in such tasks. To determine whether viewers code perspective whenever they must locate an object, we examined young children’s performance on a task in which coding perspective would be difficult. Our task involved both disorientation and translation (i.e., movement from inside to outside the space or vice versa). When translation preceded disorientation, performance was comparable to performance on tasks with no translation. However, when disorientation preceded translation, performance was at chance. The implications of these findings for location coding are discussed. As humans and other animals move in space, it is important for them to keep track of the location of various objects and places. Yet the mechanisms involved in maintaining location information are not well understood. Location can be coded relative to the self or to the surrounding spatial environment (Newcombe, 2002; Newcombe &Huttenlocher, 2000). Coding relative to self allows location information to be maintained when viewers remain stationary or can track their movements (Rieser, 1989; Rieser, Guth, & Hill, 1986). When viewers become disoriented, coding must be based on spatial features of the environment (Cheng, 1986; Cheng & Gallistel, 1984; Gallistel, 1990). However, although space-centered representations specify the relation of objects to the environment, they do not directly specify the relation between the viewer and those objects. In the present report, we examine the role of viewing perspective in location coding.