Spatial Working Memory of Out-of-Sight Places: Representational Perspective and Continuity

Abstract

Spatial cognition enables humans to remember, imagine, and navigate their environments by integrating sensory input, spatial representations, and memory. A key feature of spatial memory is its dependency on viewpoint and position: mental representations of space are not static but are dynamically reconstructed depending on the observer’s location, orientation, and imagined perspective. This thesis investigates the phenomenon of position-dependent recall — the idea that spatial recall varies systematically with the observer’s physical or simulated position and heading — across two complementary experimental paradigms. In the first study, participants engaged in a novel immersive sketching task in virtual reality (VR). While immersed in a VR simulation of familiar urban locations, they were asked to draw sketch maps of spatially remote but well-known places. The study examined how body orientation and simulated viewpoint influenced recall orientation, and whether position-dependent effects persisted after participants exited the virtual environment. In the second study, participants performed a free recall task while situated at specific virtual starting positions and orientations. Without drawing or external spatial aids, they verbally listed familiar locations from memory. This experiment tested whether recall was influenced by the simulated viewpoint and whether retrieval sequences exhibited systematic spatial progression, reflecting dynamic organization of spatial memory based on proximity, familiarity, and imagined perspective. Together, these experiments provide evidence that spatial recall is shaped by both egocentric (viewpoint-based) and allocentric (map-based) reference frames, and that immersive VR constitutes a valid methodological tool for investigating these processes. By combining controlled virtual environments with natural recall behavior, this thesis advances our understanding of how spatial memories are organized, accessed, and influenced by bodily orientation and imagined perspective.