Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Cognitive Processing https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-019-00909-y SHORT COMMUNICATION Integrating visuospatial information across distinct experiences Stephanie N. Pantelides 1,2  · Marios N. Avraamides 1,2 Received: 12 March 2018 / Accepted: 16 February 2019 © Marta Olivetti Belardinelli and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract In two experiments, we examined whether the presence of stable visual information and the confluence of the viewpoints would cause participants to integrate in a single memory representation spatial locations they encoded at different points in time. Participants studied from the same or from different viewpoints two layouts of objects within a common visually cluttered room. Then, they carried out a series of pointing trials that involved objects from either the same or different layouts. Results showed that participants were faster for within- than between-layout judgments when they had studied the two layouts from different viewpoints but were equally fast across the two types of judgment after studying the layouts from the same viewpoint (Experiment 1). This finding suggests that they integrated locations into a single representation only when encoding the layouts from the same viewpoint. However, when participants’ memory for the layout studied first was refreshed prior to testing (Experiment 2), no difference in response time was found, suggesting that they had integrated all locations in a single representation before the beginning of testing. Keywords Integration · Spatial cognition · Spatial memory · Visual encoding · Orientation Introduction Imagine visiting a shopping mall for the first time and mem- orizing the locations of stores you encounter along the route you take. Now, imagine going to the same mall again at a later date and taking another route that takes you by stores you have not seen during your first visit. Would you update your spatial representation to include the locations of all stores you have seen during your two visits or would you keep them in two separate representations linked to each visit? The integration of information about separately learned spaces is considered an important distinct step in spatial cognitive microgenesis, i.e., the process of knowledge development over time when acquiring information about unfamiliar environments (Montello 1998; Siegel and White 1975). Thus, a growing literature in the field of spatial cog- nition has focused on investigating the circumstances under which people integrate into a single spatial representation information that is acquired at different points in time. Most studies on spatial integration rely on the same general paradigm: Participants first experience two spatial layouts one after the other and then carry out a task that requires information from only one of the layouts (within- layout judgments) or from both layouts (between-layout judgments). The rationale of this paradigm is that if all infor- mation has been stored in a single integrated representation in memory, performance for within- and between-layout judgments should be similar. If, however, spatial informa- tion about the two layouts is maintained in distinct mental representations, performance should be inferior for between- than within-layout judgments, reflecting the cost of switch- ing from one representation to the other. In support of the distinct representations account, the overwhelming majority of studies that have used this paradigm report better performance for within- than between-layout judgments for vista-scale (e.g., Adamou et al. 2014; Giudice et al. 2009; Greenauer and Waller 2010; Greenauer et al. 2013; Meilinger et al. 2011) and for environmental-scale space (e.g., Ishikawa and Montello 2006; Montello and Pick 1993; Weisberg et al. 2013). For example, in a study Ishikawa and Montello (2006), par- ticipants were guided several times along two routes in a * Stephanie N. Pantelides pantelidou.stefani@ucy.ac.cy 1 Department of Psychology, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus 2 Center for Applied Neuroscience, University of Cyprus, P.O Box: 20537, Nicosia, Cyprus