Abstract
Earlier experiments have shown that judging the relative locations of two-dimensional stimuli takes longer if those stimuli are horizontal than if they are vertical. If the terms east, west, north, and south are used, such effects may occur only in tasks where these words are synonymous with right, left, above, and below, and not in tasks where landmarks could be used. The present experiment was designed to determine whether east and west take longer than north and south in a more natural, three-dimensional space (locations on a college campus). College students responded to sentences describing the relative locations of buildings on their campus. East and west sentences took longer than north and south sentences, and locations close together took longer than locations farther apart. Thus, earlier results with two-dimensional stimuli were replicated in this more natural, three-dimensional space.
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I am grateful to Jennie Schuler for testing some of the subjects and to William S. Maki, Jr., for his helpful comments on the manuscript.
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Maki, R.H. Processing relative locations in a natural space. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 14, 25–28 (1979). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329389
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329389