Exploring the neural basis and modulating factors of implicit altercentric spatial perspective-taking with fNIRS.

Humans spontaneously take the perspective of others when encoding spatial information in a scene, especially with agentive action cues present. This functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study explored how action observation influences implicit spatial perspective-taking (SPT) by adapting a left-right spatial judgment task to investigate whether transformation strategies underlying altercentric SPT can be predicted on the basis of cortical activation. Strategies associated with two opposing neurocognitive accounts (embodied versus disembodied) and their proposed neural correlates (human mirror neuron system; hMNS versus cognitive control network; CCN) are hypothesized. Exploratory analyses with 117 subjects uncover an interplay between perspective-taking and post-hoc factor, consistency of selection, in regions alluding to involvement of the CCN. Descriptively, inconsistent altercentric SPT elicited greater activation than consistent altercentric SPT and/or inconsistent egocentric SPT in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left motor cortex (MC), but not the inferior parietal lobules (IPL). Despite the presence of grasping cues, spontaneous embodied strategies were not evident during implicit altercentric SPT. Instead, neural trends in the inconsistent subgroups (22 subjects; 13 altercentric; 9 egocentric) suggest that inconsistency in selection modulates the decision-making process and plausibly taps on deliberate and effortful disembodied strategies driven by the CCN. Implications for future research are discussed.

Altering emotions near the hand: Approach-avoidance swipe interactions modulate the perceived valence of emotional pictures.

Approaching positive objects and avoiding negative ones are general action tendencies in human behavior. Interestingly, hand or arm positions connoting approach (arm flexion) or avoidance (arm extension) have also been shown to influence how the valence of a stimulus is evaluated. However, this causal effect on valence evaluation has been typically examined within experimental paradigms that do not require acting upon objects such as when touching or moving them. Accordingly, the current study attempts to integrate approach-avoidance paradigms with findings suggesting that manipulating visual stimuli directly by hand modulates their cognitive processing. Sixty participants evaluated the valence of 40 emotional pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) twice, first after watching them on a monitor (i.e., baseline evaluations) and second after swiping them on a touchscreen, either toward or away from their body (i.e., interactions regulating distance). Our findings confirmed that, in contrast to just watching the pictures, (a) swiping positive pictures closer and negative pictures away led to positively change their valence evaluation (i.e., reinforcing the perceived valence of positive pictures and attenuating the perceived valence of negative pictures). However, (b) swiping negative pictures closer and positive pictures away barely changed their initial valence evaluation. Against this background, we argue that swiping emotional pictures closer or away directly by hand, may intensify the attentional prioritization to interactions leading to more desirable consequences, namely, approaching positive and avoiding negative stimuli. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Coding valence in touchscreen interactions: hand dominance and lateral movement influence valence appraisals of emotional pictures.

The Body-Specificity Hypothesis postulates that the space surrounding the dominant hand is perceived as positive due to the motor fluency of this hand, whereas the space surrounding the non-dominant hand is perceived as negative. Experimental studies based on this theoretical framework also revealed associations between affective valence and hand dominance (i.e., dominant hand-positive; non-dominant hand-negative), or lateral movements of the hands (i.e., right hand toward the right space-positive; left hand toward the left space-positive). Interestingly, these associations have not been examined with regard to how lateral actions of the hands may influence affective experiences as, for example, in valence appraisals of affective objects that have been manipulated. The study presented here has considered this question in light of the emerging interest of embodied cognition approaches to interactive technologies, particularly in affective experiences with touchscreen interfaces. Accordingly, right-handed participants evaluated the valence of positive and negative emotional pictures after interacting with them either with the dominant right or with the non-dominant left hand. Specifically, they moved the pictures either from left to right or from right to left sides of a touchscreen monitor. The results indicated that a valence matching between the hand used for the interactions, the picture's valence category, and the movement's starting side reinforced the valence appraisals of the pictures (i.e., positive/negative pictures were more positively/negatively evaluated). The findings are discussed against the background of the Theory of Event Coding, which accounts for both the affective properties of the stimuli and the affective connotation of the related action.

Music-space associations are grounded, embodied and situated: examination of cello experts and non-musicians in a standard tone discrimination task.

In recent research, a systematic association of musical pitch with space has been described in the so-called Spatial-Pitch-Association-of-Response Codes-effect (SPARC). Typically, high pitch is associated with upper/right and low pitch with lower/left space. However, a theoretical classification of these associations regarding their experiential sources is difficult. Therefore, we applied a theoretical framework of numerical cognition classifying similar Space-Associated Response Codes (SARC) effects according to their groundedness, embodiedness and situatedness. We tested these attributes with a group of non-musicians and with a group of highly skilled cello players playing high tones with lower hand positions (i.e., reverse SPARC alignment) in a standard SPARC context of a piano and a reversed SPARC context of a cello. The results showed that SPARC is grounded, in general. However, for cello player SPARC is also situated and embodied. We conclude that groundedness, embodiedness and situatedness provide general characteristics of mapping cognitive representations to space.

Valence-space associations in touchscreen interactions: Valence match between emotional pictures and their vertical touch location leads to pictures' positive evaluation.

Embodied cognition research suggests that bodily experiences might ground mental representations of emotional valence in the vertical dimension of space (i.e., positive is up and negative is down). Accordingly, recent studies show that upward and downward arm movements may also influence the evaluation of valence-laden stimuli, suggesting that upward (downwards) movements lead to more positive (negative) evaluations. Interestingly, these studies typically did not investigate paradigms that require a direct hand interaction with the stimuli. With the advent of touchscreen devices and their use for experimental environments, however, a direct and more natural hand interaction with the stimuli has come to the fore. In this regard, the goal of the present study is to examine how direct hand interaction with valence-laden stimuli on a touchscreen monitor affects their perceived valence. To do so, participants evaluated emotional pictures after touching and moving them either upwards or downwards across a vertically mounted touchscreen. In contrast to previous findings, the results suggest that positive pictures were evaluated as more positive after downward movements while negative pictures were evaluated as less negative following upward movements. This finding may indicate that a matching between the pictures' valence and the valence associated with their vertical touch location leads to more positive evaluations. Thus, the present study extends earlier results by an important point: Touching the emotional pictures during movement may influence their valence processing.

Manipulating the Alpha Level Cannot Cure Significance Testing.

We argue that making accept/reject decisions on scientific hypotheses, including a recent call for changing the canonical alpha level from p = 0.05 to p = 0.005, is deleterious for the finding of new discoveries and the progress of science. Given that blanket and variable alpha levels both are problematic, it is sensible to dispense with significance testing altogether. There are alternatives that address study design and sample size much more directly than significance testing does; but none of the statistical tools should be taken as the new magic method giving clear-cut mechanical answers. Inference should not be based on single studies at all, but on cumulative evidence from multiple independent studies. When evaluating the strength of the evidence, we should consider, for example, auxiliary assumptions, the strength of the experimental design, and implications for applications. To boil all this down to a binary decision based on a p-value threshold of 0.05, 0.01, 0.005, or anything else, is not acceptable.

Magnitude or Multitude - What Counts?

Recent studies revealed an association of low or high numbers (e.g., 1 vs. 9) and word semantics referring to entities typically found in upper or lower space (e.g., roof vs. root) indicating overlapping spatial representations. Another line of research revealed a similar association of grammatical number as a syntactic aspect of language and physical space: singular words were associated with left and plural words with right - resembling spatial-numerical associations of low numbers with left and high numbers with right. The present study aimed at integrating these lines of research by evaluating both types of spatial relations in one experiment. In a lexical decision task, pairs of a numerical cue and a subsequent plural noun were presented. For word with spatial associations (e.g., roofs vs. roots) number magnitude was expected to serve as a spatial cue. For spatially neutral words (e.g., tables) numbers were expected to cue multitude. Results showed the expected congruency-effect between the numbers and words with spatial associations (i.e., small numbers facilitate responses to down-words and high numbers to up-words). However, no effect was found for numbers and spatially neutral words. This seems to indicate that spatial aspects of word meaning may be related more closely to the magnitude of numbers than grammatical number is to the multitude reflected by numbers - at least in the current experimental setting, where only plural words were presented.

Does Grammatical Number Influence the Semantic Priming Between Number Cues and Words Related to Vertical Space? An Investigation Using Virtual Reality.

The GES framework postulates a hierarchical order between grounded, embodied, and situated representations. Against this background, the present study investigated the relation of two effects: (i) a semantic priming between number cues and words with referents up or down in the world according to the number's magnitude which is supposed to be grounded (cf. Lachmair et al., 2014) and (ii) the compatibility between number cues and the grammatical word form of the words according to the number's multitude which is supposed to be embodied (cf. Roettger and Domahs, 2015). In two experiments words referring to objects up or down in the world and spatially neutral words were presented subsequent to the numbers "1" and "9." In Experiment 1 words were presented in singular word form and in Experiment 2 in plural word form. For the first time, Virtual Reality was used in such an experimental setup in order to reduce spatial predispositions of participants and to provide a homogeneous experimental environment for replication purposes. According to GES it was expected that the spatial semantic priming should occur in both grammatical word forms. However, the compatibility with grammatical number should only occur for the plural word form due to its markedness. The results of Experiment 1 support the spatial-semantic-priming-hypothesis but not the grammatical-number-hypothesis. The results of Experiment 2 supported only the grammatical-number-hypothesis. It is argued that the grounded spatial effect of Experiment 1 was not affected by grammatical number. However, in Experiment 2 this effect vanished due to an activated embodied reference frame according to grammatical number.

How Body Orientation Affects Concepts of Space, Time and Valence: Functional Relevance of Integrating Sensorimotor Experiences during Word Processing.

The aim of the present study was to test the functional relevance of the spatial concepts UP or DOWN for words that use these concepts either literally (space) or metaphorically (time, valence). A functional relevance would imply a symmetrical relationship between the spatial concepts and words related to these concepts, showing that processing words activate the related spatial concepts on one hand, but also that an activation of the concepts will ease the retrieval of a related word on the other. For the latter, the rotation angle of participant's body position was manipulated either to an upright or a head-down tilted body position to activate the related spatial concept. Afterwards participants produced in a within-subject design previously memorized words of the concepts space, time and valence according to the pace of a metronome. All words were related either to the spatial concept UP or DOWN. The results including Bayesian analyses show (1) a significant interaction between body position and words using the concepts UP and DOWN literally, (2) a marginal significant interaction between body position and temporal words and (3) no effect between body position and valence words. However, post-hoc analyses suggest no difference between experiments. Thus, the authors concluded that integrating sensorimotor experiences is indeed of functional relevance for all three concepts of space, time and valence. However, the strength of this functional relevance depends on how close words are linked to mental concepts representing vertical space.

Priming effects between spatial meaning of verbs and numbers are modulated by time intervals: Early interference and late facilitation.

In 2 recent studies it has been shown that processing high or low number primes (8, 9 vs. 1, 2) affect the processing of subsequent target words with an implicit spatial cue up or down (e.g., sky, to rise vs. floor, to fall) (Lachmair, Dudschig, de la Vega, & Kaup, 2014a; Lachmair, Dudschig, Ruiz Fernández, & Kaup, 2014b). It has been argued that the interactions for number-noun and number-verb pairs are due to overlapping representations of numbers and words. If this is true, one should find similar interactions by using words as primes and numbers as targets (neuronal-overlap-of-meaning hypothesis). It has also been argued that the reversed interaction for number-verb pairs as shown in Lachmair et al. (2014b) might be due to a dynamic simulation of the associated motion (dynamic-spatial-grounding hypothesis). This was tested by using 3 different time intervals for target presentation. The results show first that the neuronal-overlap-of-meaning hypothesis was only supported for verb-number pairs (Experiment 1), not for noun-number pairs (Experiment 2). Second, the dynamic-spatial-grounding hypothesis was supported by the results for verb-number pairs as expected. This suggests that neuronal representations of numbers and verbs share common spatial meaning attributes. Moreover, the results suggest that the meaning of verbs with implicit directional cue up or down is dynamically simulated according to the course of their movement. (PsycINFO Database Record

Relating numeric cognition and language processing: do numbers and words share a common representational platform?

Numerical processing and language processing are both grounded in space. In the present study we investigated whether these are fully independent phenomena, or whether they share a common basis. If number processing activates spatial dimensions that are also relevant for understanding words, then we can expect that processing numbers may influence subsequent lexical access to words. Specifically, if high numbers relate to upper space, then they can be expected to facilitate understanding of words such as bird that are having referents typically found in the upper vertical space. The opposite should hold for low numbers. These should facilitate the understanding of words such as ground referring to entities with referents in the lower vertical space. Indeed, in two experiments we found evidence for such an interaction between number and word processing. By eliminating a contribution of linguistic factors gained from additional investigations on large text corpora, this strongly suggests that understanding numbers and language is based on similar modal representations in the brain. The implications of these findings for a broader perspective on grounded cognition will be discussed.

Processing order in dual-tasks when the duration of motor responses varies / Orden de ejecución de dos tareas cuando la duración de las respuestas motoras varían

Recent studies reported that central processing duration influences processing order of two tasks in the psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm. This study examined whether the duration of response execution influences the processing of task order. For this purpose, a tone discrimination task was combined with a letter discrimination task. Both tasks were presented in random order using different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). In one condition, participants responded to each stimulus with a single key press (easy response condition). In the other condition, the tone task required a single key press, whereas the letter task required a more time-consuming key press-sequence (hard response condition). The results showed that participants tend to perform the tone task first more often when the response requirement for the letter task is hard, rather than easy. This result is consistent with the notion that participants optimize response scheduling in dual-task situations.

Bajo el paradigma de periodo refractario psicológico (PRP), recientes estudios han hallado que la duración del procesamiento central influye en el orden en el que dos tareas son procesadas. En el presente trabajo se examinó si la duración de la respuesta también influye en el orden en el que dos tareas se ejecutan. Para este propósito, se utilizó una tarea de discriminación auditiva en combinación con una tarea de discriminación visual. En el experimento se varió el orden de presentación de las tareas de forma aleatoria así como se utilizaron diferentes intervalos entre estímulos (stimulus onset asynchrony; SOA) En una condición, los participantes respondieron a cada estímulo pulsando una tecla (condición de respuesta simple). En la otra condición, mientras que a la tarea auditiva se respondía de nuevo pulsando una tecla, la respuesta a la tarea visual requería pulsar una secuencia de teclas, aumentando la duración de la respuesta (condición de respuesta compleja). Los resultados mostraron que los participantes tienden a ejecutar más a menudo la tarea auditiva en primer lugar cuando la respuesta de la tarea visual es más compleja. Este resultado apoya la noción de que, en escenarios de doble tarea, los participantes pueden invertir sus respuestas si con ello optimizan su ejecución.

Reading "sun" and looking up: the influence of language on saccadic eye movements in the vertical dimension.

Traditionally, language processing has been attributed to a separate system in the brain, which supposedly works in an abstract propositional manner. However, there is increasing evidence suggesting that language processing is strongly interrelated with sensorimotor processing. Evidence for such an interrelation is typically drawn from interactions between language and perception or action. In the current study, the effect of words that refer to entities in the world with a typical location (e.g., sun, worm) on the planning of saccadic eye movements was investigated. Participants had to perform a lexical decision task on visually presented words and non-words. They responded by moving their eyes to a target in an upper (lower) screen position for a word (non-word) or vice versa. Eye movements were faster to locations compatible with the word's referent in the real world. These results provide evidence for the importance of linguistic stimuli in directing eye movements, even if the words do not directly transfer directional information.

Keep your hands crossed: the valence-by-left/right interaction is related to hand, not side, in an incongruent hand-response key assignment.

The body-specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009) associates positive emotional valence and the space surrounding the dominant hand, and negative valence and the space surrounding the non-dominant hand. This effect has not only been found for manual responses, but also for the left and right side. In the present study, we investigated whether this compatibility effect still shows when hand and side carry incongruent information, and whether it is then related to hand or to side. We conducted two experiments which used an incongruent hand-response key assignment, that is, participants had their hands crossed. Participants were instructed to respond with their right vs. left hand (Experiment 1) or with the right vs. left key (Experiment 2). In both experiments, a compatibility effect related to hand emerged, indicating that the association between hand and valence overrides the one between side and valence when hand and side carry contradicting information.

Priming the mental time-line: effects of modality and processing mode.

The notion of a mental time-line (i.e., past corresponds to left and future corresponds to right) supports the conceptual metaphor view assuming that abstract concepts like "time" are grounded in cognitively more accessible concepts like "space." In five experiments, we further investigated the relationship between temporal and spatial representations and examined whether or not the spatial correspondents of time are unintentionally activated. We employed a priming paradigm, in which visual or auditory prime words (i.e., temporal adverbs such as yesterday, tomorrow) preceded a colored square. In all experiments, participants discriminated the color of this square by responding with the left or the right hand. Although the temporal reference of the priming adverb was task irrelevant in Experiment 1, visually presented primes facilitated responses to the square in correspondence with the direction of the mental time-line. This priming effect was absent in Experiments 2, 3, and 5, in which the primes were presented auditorily and the temporal reference of the words could be ignored. The effect, however, emerged when attention was oriented to the temporal content of the auditory prime words in Experiment 4. The results suggest that task demands differentially modulate the activation of the mental time-line within the visual and auditory modality and support a flexible association between conceptual codes.

When up-words meet down-sentences: evidence for word- or sentence-based compatibility effects?

Participants were presented with sentences mentioning an entity with a typical location in the upper or lower vertical space (e.g., roof vs. root). Sentences supported or reversed the typical location of the target entity. Sensibility judgments requiring upwards or downwards responses were faster when the response matched rather than mismatched the target entity's typical location. This compatibility effect was independent of whether the sentence context supported or reversed the target entity's typical location. The results, therefore, provide clear evidence for word-based but no evidence for sentence-based simulation processes.

From top to bottom: spatial shifts of attention caused by linguistic stimuli.

Interacting with the world around us involves dealing with constant information input. Thus, humans must selectively filter and focus attention on relevant aspects for the current situation. The current study investigates orientations of attention after words that do not convey spatial information in their meaning (e.g. cloud, shoe). The current study minimizes both the linguistic demands by simply presenting task-irrelevant words and the visual processing demands by implementing a simple target detection task. According to automatic response biases in the motor domain (Lachmair et al. 2011), we hypothesized that words such as cloud produce attention shifts in the direction of the typical location of the word's referent in the world (e.g. cloud up in the sky). Indeed, target detection was facilitated if target location matched the typical location of the word's referent. These findings are strong evidence for the important role of space during language processing, showing that vertical attention is modulated even by task-irrelevant verbal cues.

Do task-irrelevant direction-associated motion verbs affect action planning? Evidence from a Stroop paradigm.

Does simply seeing a word such as rise activate upward responses? The present study is concerned with bottom-up activation of motion-related experiential traces. Verbs referring to an upward or downward motion (e.g., rise/fall) were presented in one of four colors. Participants had to perform an upward or downward hand movement (experiments 1 and 2a/2b) or a stationary up or down located keypress response (experiment 3) according to font color. In all experiments, responding was faster if the word's immanent motion direction matched the response (e.g., upward/up response in case of rise); however, this effect was strongest in the experiments requiring an actual upward or downward response movement (experiments 1 and 2a/2b). These findings suggest bottom-up activation of motion-related experiential traces, even if the task does not demand lexical access or focusing on a word's meaning.

Emotional valence and physical space: limits of interaction.

According to the body-specificity hypothesis, people associate positive things with the side of space that corresponds to their dominant hand and negative things with the side corresponding to their nondominant hand. Our aim was to find out whether this association holds also true for a response time study using linguistic stimuli, and whether such an association is activated automatically. Four experiments explored this association using positive and negative words. In Exp. 1, right-handers made a lexical judgment by pressing a left or right key. Attention was not explicitly drawn to the valence of the stimuli. No valence-by-side interaction emerged. In Exp. 2 and 3, right-handers and left-handers made a valence judgment by pressing a left or a right key. A valence-by-side interaction emerged: For positive words, responses were faster when participants responded with their dominant hand, whereas for negative words, responses were faster for the nondominant hand. Exp. 4 required a valence judgment without stating an explicit mapping of valence and side. No valence-by-side interaction emerged. The experiments provide evidence for an association between response side and valence, which, however, does not seem to be activated automatically but rather requires a task with an explicit response mapping to occur.

Root versus roof: automatic activation of location information during word processing.

In four experiments, participants were presented with nouns referring to entities that are associated with an up or down location (e.g., roof, root). The required response either was compatible with the referent location or was not (e.g., upward vs. downward movement after reading roof). Across experiments, we manipulated whether the experimental task required word reading or not, as well as whether the response involved a movement or was stationary. In all experiments, participants' responses were significantly faster in the compatible than in the incompatible condition. This strongly suggests that location information is automatically activated when nouns are being processed.