MENTAL ROTATION AND THE AUTOMATIC UPDATING OF BODY-CENTERED SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Blindfolded adult participants (7 male and 9 female) were asked to poi nt to previously seen targets after a body rotation. In 1 condition, p articipants had to update their positions relative to the targets duri ng rotation; in another condition, they had to ignore the rotation and to imagine that they were still in their initial orientation. In the updating condition, replicating research of J. J. Rieser (1989), respo nse latencies were only slightly affected by the magnitude of the body rotation. In the ignoring condition, however, response latencies incr eased with the angular difference between the participants' new positi on and their original orientation, suggesting that the participants up dated their positions and then retrospectively ''undid'' this updating to mentally reestablish their original orientation. The results are s upportive of the idea that heading is updated automatically as a perso n moves so that she or he is always primarily oriented with respect to her or his actual position.