Egocentric and Allocentric Spatial Memory for Body Parts: A Virtual Reality Study

Extensive literature elucidated the mechanisms underlying the ability to memorize the positions of objects in space. However, less is known about the impact that objects’ features have on spatial memory. The present study aims to investigate differences in egocentric and allocentric object-location memory between hand stimuli depicted in a first-person perspective (1PP) or in a third-person one (3PP). Fifty-two adults encoded spatial positions within a virtual museum environment featuring four square buildings. Each of these buildings featured eight paintings positioned along the walls, with two pictures displayed on each of the four walls. Thirty-two stimuli were employed, which represented pictures of the right hand performing various types of gestures. Half of the stimuli depicted the hand in the 1PP, while the other half depicted the hand in the 3PP. Both free and guided explorations served as encoding conditions. Immediately after that, participants underwent a two-step object-location memory task. Participants were provided with a map of the museum and asked to identify the correct building where the image was located (allocentric memory). Then, they were presented with a schematic representation of the exhibition room divided into four sections and instructed to select the section where they thought the picture was located (egocentric memory). Our findings indicate a memory performance boost associated with egocentric recall, regardless of the perspective of the bodily stimuli. The results are discussed considering the emerging literature on the mnemonic properties of body-related stimuli for spatial memory.