AbstractsPsychology

Accurate recognition of changes in scene layout is necessary to function in everyday life. Self-motion sensitivity, comprised of efference copy and afferent signals, is employed to respond to these changes, however little is known about how these signals may influence active display recognition. Previous spatial perception experimentation has shown that individuals with high schizotypal traits perform differently than those with low schizotypal traits while estimating walked distance in non-visual walking and imagined walking tasks (Rohde & Yamamoto, 2013). It is postulated that this result could be attributed to a presumable dysfunction of efference copy associated with schizotypy. It was hypothesized that lack of efference copy may influence other spatial perception tasks involving self-motion. This study investigated the influence of efference copy on active display recognition by comparing accuracy scores of high and low schizotypal groups. Contrary to the prediction, results found no significant difference between groups in accuracy for detecting change in a scene, suggesting that tasks that rely exclusively on body-based information (e.g. non-visual perception of walked distance) may be more susceptible to dysfunction in efference copy, or simply that the degree of possible efference copy dysfunction in the current participants was not large enough. Information from this study can be used to shape continuing research to define the role of efference copy in spatial perception.