Affiliations: [a] Institute of Cognitive Psychology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal | [b] Institute of Psychology, University Johannes Gutenberg, Mainz, Germany
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Nuno Alexandre De Sá Teixeira, Institute of Cognitive Psychology, Rua do Colégio Novo, Apartado 6153, 3001-802 Coimbra, Portugal. E-mail: nuno_desateixeira@fpce.uc.pt
Abstract: Background:When people are asked to indicate the vanishing location of a moving target, errors in the direction of motion (representational momentum) and in the direction of gravity (representational gravity) are usually found. These errors possess a temporal course wherein the memory for the location of the target drifts downwards with increasing temporal intervals between target's disappearance and participant's responses (representational trajectory). Objective:To assess if representational trajectory is a body-referenced or a world-referenced phenomenon. Methods:A behavioral localization method was employed with retention times between 0 and 1400 ms systematically imposed after the target's disappearance. The target could move horizontally (rightwards or leftwards) or vertically (upwards or downwards). Body posture was varied in a counterbalanced order between sitting upright and lying on the side (left lateral decubitus position). Results:In the upright task, the memory for target location drifted downwards with time in the direction of gravity. This time course did not emerge for the decubitus task, where idiotropic dominance was found. Conclusions:The dynamic visual representation of gravity is neither purely body-referenced nor world-referenced. It seems to be modulated instead by the relationship between the idiotropic vector and physical gravity.
Keywords: Representational momentum, representational gravity, representational trajectory, internal model of gravity, idiotropic vector, spatial perception
