• Christos Kaspiris-Rousellis, Constantinos I Siettos, Ioannis Evdokimidis, and Nikolaos Smyrnis.
• Laboratory of Sensorimotor Control, University Mental Health Research Institute, 2 Soranou Efessiou, Athens GR 15601, Greece; School of Applied Mathematics and Physical Sciences, National Technical University of Athens, 9 Iroon Politehniou, Athens GR 15780, Greece.
• Neuroscience. 2016 Dec 5.

AbstractPerceiving and reproducing direction of visual stimuli in 2-D space produces the visual oblique effect, which manifests as increased precision in the reproduction of cardinal compared to oblique directions. A second cognitive oblique effect emerges when stimulus information is degraded (such as when reproducing stimuli from memory) and manifests as a systematic distortion where reproduced directions close to the cardinal axes deviate toward the oblique, leading to space expansion at cardinal and contraction at oblique axes. We studied the oblique effect in 3-D using a virtual reality system to present a large number of stimuli, covering the surface of an imaginary half sphere, to which subjects had to reach. We used two conditions, one with no delay (no-memory condition) and one where a three-second delay intervened between stimulus presentation and movement initiation (memory condition). A visual oblique effect was observed for the reproduction of cardinal directions compared to oblique, which did not differ with memory condition. A cognitive oblique effect also emerged, which was significantly larger in the memory compared to the no-memory condition, leading to distortion of directional space with expansion near the cardinal axes and compression near the oblique axes on the hemispherical surface. This effect provides evidence that existing models of 2-D directional space categorization could be extended in the natural 3-D space.Copyright © 2016 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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