Representational Momentum for Metric and Topological Spatial Transformations

• Elijah Graves, Psychology Education, University of Delaware

• Alon Hafri, Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware

Representational Momentum (RM) is a visual memory bias in which moving objects are remembered as having traveled farther along their motion path than they actually did. Because spatial memory is thought to be influenced by categorical representations, research suggests that spatial relations are not encoded in memory with perfect metric precision, but are instead represented categorically. Previous research has shown that spatial relations are more easily recalled in memory when they cross categorical boundaries than when they remain within the same category. The present experiment investigates whether RM is subject to constraints imposed by spatial categories by examining whether its strength differs between metric and categorical spatial changes. To answer this question, participants will be recruited through the online experiment platform Prolific and will observe brief animations of two circles: a stationary circle and a moving circle. Crucially, the moving circle will either remain in the same spatial relation with the stationary circle throughout the animation (e.g., outside to outside) or change relations (e.g., outside to intersecting). Following each animation, participants will view a 500-ms mask and select which of two probe configurations most closely matches their memory of the moving circle’s final position. One probe will be displaced forward and the other backward along the circle’s path of motion by an equal, fixed pixel amount. A greater proportion of forward responses will indicate a stronger RM effect.  We predict that RM will be weakest when the animation involves a categorical change because spatial scenes are thought to be encoded categorically, which may constrain the extent to which continuous motion is represented in memory across categorical boundaries. These findings may provide insight into how the visual system processes and stores relational and metric spatial information, with broader implications for spatial cognition, spatial-skill development, and mathematical and geometric learning.