Reliability of Principal Axis Influences Use of Geometric Cues: Evidence for a Unified Orientation Process

A substantial amount of empirical and theoretical debate remains concerning the extent to which an ability to orient with respect to the environment is determined by global (i.e., principal axis of space), local (i.e., wall lengths, angles), and/or stored representations (i.e., view-based) accounts. We developed a novel orientation task that allowed the manipulation of the reliability of the principal axis of space (i.e., searching at the egocentric left- and/or right-hand side of the principal axis) between groups while maintaining goal distance from the principal axis, local cues specifying the goal location (i.e., short wall left, short wall right, obtuse angle), and visual aspects of the goal location consistent across groups. Results suggest that the reliability of the principal axis of an enclosure differentially influences the use of geometric cues for reorientation. Such a conclusion has implications for purely global-based, purely local-based, and purely view-based matching theoretical accounts of geometry learning and provides evidence for a unified orientation process.