OBJECT-ARRAY STRUCTURE, FRAMES OF REFERENCE, AND RETRIEVAL OF SPATIALKNOWLEDGE

Experiments are reported that assessed the ability of people, without vision, to locate the positions of objects from imagined points of obs ervation that are related to their actual position by rotational or tr anslational components. Theoretical issues addressed were whether spat ial relations stored in an object-to-object system are directly retrie ved or whether retrieval is mediated by a body-centered coordinate sys tem, and whether body-centered access involves a process of imaging up dating of self-position. The results, with those of Rieser (1989), ind icate that in the case of regularly structured object arrays, interobj ect relations are directly retrieved for the translation task, but for the rotation task, retrieval occurs by means of a body-centered coord inate system, requiring imagined body rotation. For irregularly struct ured arrays, access of interobject spatial structure occurs by means o f a body-centered coordinate system for both translation and rotation tasks, requiring imagined body translation or rotation. Array regulari ty affected retrieval of spatial structure in terms of global shape of interobject relations and local object position within global shape.