Subjective vertical in presence of visual or auditory cues: Towards an allocentric dependence?

  • Chomienne Loïc
  • Goulon Cedric
  • Parseihian Gaëtan
  • Bringoux Lionel

    ART

    Subjective vertical in presence of visual or auditory cues: Towards an allocentric dependence? The psychological differentiation approach initiated by Witkin and Asch (1948) on the perception of verticality yielded the concept of field dependence, through which observers could be distinguished from their tendency to be influenced or not by a visual frame tilt when judging the direction of gravity (i.e., subjective vertical [SV]). Since, field dependence has been mostly considered as a marker for a preferential sensibility to visual information with respect to other sensory modalities (e.g., vestibular or somatosensory). This pilot study aims at tackling the issue of field dependence in spatial perception from a novel perspective. We hypothesized that orientation cues issued from a same reference frame centered on near surroundings (i.e. allocentric reference frame) could lead to comparable distinctions between observers, whatever the sensory modality involved in conveying these cues. We tested 23 participants on a SV adjustment task facing two allocentric-visual or auditory-scenes. Our results show a strong correlation between SV settings in both sensory conditions where the allocentric scene was tilted. These findings suggest that individuals could differ regarding the process of spatial information issued from a same reference frame, irrespective from the sensory modality conveying the information.