Department of Psychology, Armstrong Atlantic State University, 229 Science Center, 11935 Abercorn Street, Savannah, GA 31419, USA.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2011 Oct;18(5):848-54. doi: 10.3758/s13423-011-0111-z.
We investigated the extent to which parameters of environmental shape - namely the major and minor principal axes of space which pass through the centroid and approximate length and width of the entire space, respectively, were subject to similar psychophysical principles as those involved in distance discriminations. We developed an orientation task that allowed us to manipulate the ratio of the major to the minor principal axes of an enclosure during training and control for orientation by alternative cues other than principal axes such as wall lengths or corner angles during testing. Participants trained in an environment with a larger hypothetical discriminability ratio allocated more responses to locations specified by the principal axes of space across novel enclosure types compared to a group trained with a smaller hypothetical discriminability ratio. Results suggest that psychophysical principles may operate on the discrimination of environmental shape parameters and delineate a potential mechanism for experiential and developmental changes in orientation ability.
我们研究了环境形状的参数在多大程度上受到类似心理物理原理的影响，这些原理涉及到距离辨别，例如通过质心并分别近似整个空间的长轴和短轴，以及空间的近似长度和宽度。我们开发了一种定向任务，允许我们在训练期间操纵环境的主、次主轴的比例，并在测试期间通过主轴以外的其他替代线索（例如墙壁长度或拐角角度）来控制定向。与训练较小假设可辨别性比例的组相比，在具有较大假设可辨别性比例的环境中训练的参与者在新型外壳类型中，将更多的反应分配给由空间主轴指定的位置。结果表明，心理物理原理可能作用于环境形状参数的辨别，并描绘了体验和发展定向能力变化的潜在机制。
