Spatial Transformations of Scene Stimuli: It’s an Upright World

At least two different types of mental spatial transformations can be used in spatial reasoning: object-based transformations-updating an object’s spatial reference frame, and perspective transformations-updating the viewer’s egocentric reference frame. Pictures of human bodies have been shown to flexibly engage these systems for different tasks, suggesting that the neural systems implementing these two transformations may be adapted for different spatial reasoning situations. In the present study, four experiments tested how pictures of immersive spaces-rooms-selectively engage different transformations. Response latency patterns suggested that the visual system quickly interprets pictures of scenes using two dissociable spatial transformations: object-based transformations, which re-orient the picture with respect to upright in the world, and perspective transformations, in which the viewer imagines themselves taking up a position within the depicted scene.