Spatial Reconstruction Task

Background

The Spatial Reconstruction Task (SRT) is a cognitive psychology test used to measure relational and spatial short-term memory by having participants study an arrangement of objects and then recreate their specific positions. For example, participants might see five abstract 'squiggly' shapes positioned on the screen for 20sec and have to reconstruct their positions after a delay of 5 seconds. Patrick D. Watson and colleagues (2013) designed and published the paradigm in 2013 to investigate how specific spatial memory errors relate to different types of brain damage. Rather than just analyzing simple placement errors, they specifically looked at the errors made in relational placement. They found that particularly patients with hippocampal damage tend to swap the relative positions of object pairs whereas this kind of 'swap' error was rarely made by healthy controls. Their finding suggests that the hippocampus is critical for relational, spatial memory over even short delays.

Task Procedure

Participants are asked to study an arrangement of 5 objects on the screen (objects are presented on a white square board in the center of the screen) for 20s before the board is cleared. After a further delay (4s), the objects reappear on the top of the board, and participants are asked to re-create the original arrangement by moving them with the computer mouse/stylus pen or finger. To end a trial, participants press a 'submit' button. A 1second trial interval separates each trial sequence.

Participants first work through 8 practice trials before working on 60 test trials. By default, all practice and test trials run level N=5. The script provides the functionality to run levels N=2 to N=5, as well as a mixed block.

What it Measures

The Spatial Reconstruction Task (SRT) is a cognitive psychology test used to measure relational and spatial short-term memory

Psychological domains

• Visuospatial short-term memory: Spatial attention, visual encoding, sequential memory

Main Performance Metrics

• Swap Proportion: Proportion of all test trials in which placement swaps occur
• Distortion Proportion: Proportion of test trials with placement distortions ('swaps' of one coordinate dimension but not both)
• Misplacement: Average displacement measure in pixels (across objects)
• Edge Resizing: Average pixel distances between original object pairs

Psychiatric Conditions

The Spatial Reconstruction Task (SRT) has been used to test the following patient groups:

• Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
• Bilateral Hippocampal Damage
• Dementia

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Spatial Reconstruction Task.

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Watson, P.D., Voss, J.L, Warren, D.E., Tranel, D.T. and Cohen, N.J. (2013). Spatial Reconstruction by Patients with Hippocampal Damage is Dominated by Relational Memory Errors. HIPPOCAMPUS 23:570–580.

Watson, H., & Lee, A. (2013). The perirhinal cortex and recognition memory interference. The Journal of Neuroscience : The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 33(9), 4192-200.