Egocentric Spatial Relational Reasoning and Relational Complexity

The present study investigated reasoning performance on simple and complex spatial relations learned from egocentric and allocentric perspectives. Relational complexity was manipulated by leaving a spatial relation between two items indeterminate in the premises of a problem and reasoning performance on the indeterminate relational problems were compared with easier determinate relational problems. The present results showed that determinate problems led to better spatial reasoning than indeterminate problems. More importantly both simple and complex spatial relations were recalled better in egocentric learning condition compared to allocentric learning condition. This finding is consistent with the view that egocentric perspectives are natural and, therefore, can lead to better spatial learning. In addition, no sex difference was found in reasoning of spatial relations.