Abstract
In the present study, we examined how context of instruction and information in the visual array to be described affect spatial information packaging across a range of levels of spatial description. Participants described complex scenes containing 3-D dollhouse furniture across two different arrays (functional vs. nonfunctional arrangements of objects) and across instructional contexts (living room context, furniture showroom context, no context). Knowledge about the visual scene and instructional context both had an impact on spatial descriptions, but separately, and at different levels of granularity. The influence of visual context was particularly striking, with marked differences across conditions at multiple levels of information packaging—descriptive trajectories (the order in which objects in the spatial array were described), amount of detail, and explicit mention of atypical object orientation. The importance of visual context as a means of accessing context frames in common ground is discussed.
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This research was partially supported by a fellowship from the Hanse Institute for Advanced Studies awarded to K.R.C., by funding from the German Research Foundation for the SFB/TR8 Transregional Spatial Cognition Research Center (Project I5-[DiaSpace]) to E.A. and T.T., and by funding from the Volkswagen Foundation for the Tandem Project on Wayfinding Strategies in Behavior and Language granted to T.T.
The order of authorship of the present article is arbitrary; the three authors contributed equally to the work reported.
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Andonova, E., Tenbrink, T. & Coventry, K.R. Function and context affect spatial information packaging at multiple levels. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 17, 575–580 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.4.575
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.4.575