Mental representations have been shown to be influenced by distance. While someone likely represents a nearby target in an egocentric and concise way, mental representations tend to be more abstract at a distant recollection point. This effect applies to temporal and psychological distance as well.
Adding to the usually binary design of existing studies, we will explore whether a scaling effect of distance exists in memory representations. We are especially interested in how the representational format is affected over increasing distances.
For higher control and easier comparison between experimental results, our experiments will be in a virtual environment. Our setup will have a central room with testing locations in connected rooms which differ in their distance to the target. After exploration, participants will be tested on their memory of target locations and objects. Our first goal is to observe the effect of increasing spatial distance on spatial representations. Expanding upon spatial distance we plan to include psychological distance in the subsequent experiment. Varying room sizes, we plan to have testing locations that are equal in spatial distance but differ in psychological distance. In another follow-up experiment, we will substitute spatial distance with perceived temporal distance, simulating different timespans before testing. In the follow-up experiments we will test for object recognition, asking participants on the colour of an unusually coloured target object or to recreate its form.
We expect representations to be less detailed with increasing distance, and to be gradually replaced with more prototypical concepts of the target.