Non-Goal Cues Can Be Used to Disambiguate the Correct From the Rotationally Equivalent Location: Evidence From Blind-Folded Adults

Within the reorientation paradigm, strict associative-based accounts have suggested that responses to the rewarded beacon also result in an increase in the associative value of the corner in which it is situated [i.e., the geometrically correct corner] (Miller & Shettleworth, 2005). Given the focus on the rewarded beacon and the geometrically correct corner, little to no information should be gleaned from non-goal beacons; however, recent evidence suggests that information about non-goal beacons is acquired because the presence of a non-goal beacon can be used to disambiguate the correct from the rotationally equivalent location during testing (Sturz & Kelly, 2013). In the present experiment, we examined the extent to which a non-goal textural cue could be utilized to disambiguate the correct from the rotationally equivalent corner in the absence of vision. Specifically, we trained blind-folded adult humans to locate a target object located in a corner of a rectangular environment. Each corner contained a unique textural cue. During testing, we removed three textural cues (one of which always included the removal of the trained textural cue). Results indicated that blind-folded humans were able to utilize the presence of a non-goal texture to disambiguate the correct from the rotationally equivalent corner