Two Cultural Processing Asymmetries Drive Spatial Attention

Autor/inn/en	Mendonça, Rita; Garrido, Margarida V.; Semin, Gün R.
Titel	Two Cultural Processing Asymmetries Drive Spatial Attention
Quelle	In: Cognitive Science, 46 (2022) 8, (24 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0364-0213
DOI	10.1111/cogs.13185
Schlagwörter	Spatial Ability; Attention; Eye Movements; Bias; Time; Cues; Auditory Discrimination; Visual Discrimination; Portuguese; Arabic; Habituation + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Räumliches Vorstellungsvermögen; Aufmerksamkeit; Augenbewegung; Zeit; Stichwort; Portugiesischunterricht; Arabisch
Abstract	Cultural routines, such as reading and writing direction (script direction), channel attention orientation. Depending on one's native language habit, attention is biased from left-to-right (LR) or from right-to-left (RL). Here, we further document this bias, as it interacts with the spatial directionality that grounds time concepts. We used a spatial cueing task to test whether script direction and the grounding of time in Portuguese (LR, Exp. 1) and Arabic (RL, Exp. 2) shape visuomotor performance in target discrimination. Temporal words (e.g., tomorrow, yesterday) were presented as cues in two modalities: visual (Exp. 1-2) and auditory (Exp. 1). Gaze movement (Exp. 1) and speed of discrimination decisions (Exp. 1-2) of targets presented to the left or right sides of the screen were assessed. As predicted, the interaction between target location and time concepts was significant across both modalities and linguistic communities. Additionally, LR participants detected the target on the right side of the screen faster after a future word than the target on the left side of the screen after a past word cue. In contrast, RL participants detected the target on the left side of the screen faster when the cue word was a future word than the target on the right side of the screen cued by a past word. In both modalities, the initial eye-gaze movement (Exp. 1) was responsive to the cue's time referent, further confirming that time orients attention. An additional bias was observed for the first fixation onset, which landed earlier on the target set that matched habitualized spatial routines. We conclude that scanning regularities are shaped by writing habits and bodily grounded categorical features. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01