Functional equivalence of spatial images produced by perception and spatial language
pp. 29-48
in: Fred Mast, Lutz Jancke (eds), Spatial processing in navigation, imagery and perception, Berlin, Springer, 2007Abstract
The chapter is concerned with abstract 'spatial images", which spatially coincide with visual, auditory, and haptic percepts but continue to exist after the percepts are gone. Spatial images can also be produced by language specifying environmental locations. Three experiments are reviewed which demonstrate that the spatial images produced by space perception and by language are functionally equivalent, or nearly so. The first experiment deals with the spatial updating of single images produced by language and by spatial hearing. The second experiment deals with the updating of multiple images produced by vision, spatial hearing, and language. The third experiment deals with judgments of allocentric distance and direction between spatial images corresponding to multiple target locations specified by vision and by language.