Abstract
In the present study, we investigated whether a strong default categorical bias can be overcome in spatial memory by using alternative membership information. In three experiments, we tested location memory in a circular space while providing participants with an alternative categorization. We found that visual presentation of the boundaries of the alternative categories (Experiment 1) did not induce the use of the alternative categories in estimation. In contrast, visual cuing of the alternative category membership of a target (Experiment 2) and unique target feature information associated with each alternative category (Experiment 3) successfully led to the use of the alternative categories in estimation. Taken together, the results indicate that default categorical bias in spatial memory can be overcome when appropriate cues are provided. We discuss how these findings expand the category adjustment model (Huttenlocher, Hedges, & Duncan, 1991) in spatial memory by proposing a retrieval-based category adjustment (RCA) model.
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Experiment 2 reported in this article was part of C.S.’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was supported by NSF Grant BCS 03-17681 to R.F.W.
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Sampaio, C., Wang, R.F. Overcoming default categorical bias in spatial memory. Mem Cogn 38, 1041–1048 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.38.8.1041
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.38.8.1041