The social connection in mental representations of space: Explicit and implicit evidence

Abstract

To understand memory of and reasoning about real-world environments, all aspects of the environment, both spatial and non-spatial need to be considered. Non-spatial information can be either integral to or associated with the spatial information. This paper reviews two lines of research conducted in our lab that explore interactions between spatial information and non-spatial information associated with it (namely social information). Based on results of numerous studies, we propose that full accounts of spatial cognition about real-world environments should consider non-spatial influences, noting that some phenomena, while seemingly spatial in nature, may have substantive non-spatial influences. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.