Prismatic adaptation does not affect spatial map retrieval effect of possible implications for aero-space Flight Experts

In the present study the effect of a perceptual distortion provoked by prismatic lenses, which induces a 10° shift of the visual field, was investigated. The prism adaptation procedure has been largely used both in clinical practice to produce a recalibration of a disturbed representation of the space, and in experimental setting on healthy individuals to better understand its implications on mental space representation. Here, we assessed, in 49 college students without flight experience (26 participants exposed to prismatic lenses PL, and 23 participants not exposed NPL), the effect of a perceptual distortion in expressing directional judgements with different degrees of orientation on a previously learnt schematic environmental map. We also investigated the effects of visual mental imagery components (generation, inspection and mental rotation) on the ability to perform directional judgements. Our results showed that despite prismatic exposure produced a shift of the visual field, this shift did not affect the mental representation of the map, and the judgment of PL participants did not differ from NPL participants. Conversely, the ability to men- tally rotate an object was predictive of the directional judgements performance. Specifically, individuals with higher mental rotation skills were more able to perform counter-aligned directional judgements and were less prone to the mis-alignment effect (i.e., they were good also when they had to imagine positions on the map that were not aligned with the learning perspective). Our findings may have implications for aerospace ex- pert pilots, such as improving training systems by focus- ing on different types of mental rotation abilities (e.g., vertical mental rotation, forward mental rotation, etc...), with the aim to contrast visual illusions.