1,721,067 research outputs found
L’effetto Simon e il suo decorso temporale con stimoli linguistici non spaziali
No full textL’effetto Simon consiste in un vantaggio della prestazione in termini di velocità
e accuratezza quando la posizione della risposta corrisponde a quella dello stimolo
anche se questa è irrilevante. Il presente lavoro, utilizzando un compito di decisione
lessicale, ha indagato l’emergere dell’effetto Simon e il suo decorso temporale con stimoli
linguistici senza significato (non parole) e stimoli linguistici con significato (parole)
che non rimanda a una codifica spaziale. I risultati mostrano che il tipo di stimolo
modula sia l’emergere dell’effetto Simon, sia il suo andamento. Si osserva, infatti, che
per le parole, l’effetto Simon non emerge e il suo decorso temporale non mostra variazioni
significative, mentre per le non parole emerge e mostra un andamento significativamente
decrescente
How do numbers move mentally? The interplay between numerical cognition and multiple dimensions of space
No full textInteractive effects between gaze direction and facial expression on attentional resources deployment: the task instruction and context matter
Full text linkIn three experiments, we tested whether the amount of attentional resources needed to process a face displaying neutral/angry/fearful facial expressions with direct or averted gaze depends on task instructions, and face presentation. To this end, we used a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation paradigm in which participants in Experiment 1 were first explicitly asked to discriminate whether the expression of a target face (T1) with direct or averted gaze was angry or neutral, and then to judge the orientation of a landscape (T2). Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1 except that participants had to discriminate the gender of the face of T1 and fearful faces were also presented randomly inter-mixed within each block of trials. Experiment 3 differed from Experiment 2 only because angry and fearful faces were never
presented within the same block. The findings indicated that the presence of the attentional blink (AB) for face stimuli depends on specific combinations of gaze direction and emotional facial expressions and crucially revealed that the contextual factors (e.g., explicit instruction to process the facial expression and the presence of other emotional faces) can modify and even reverse the AB, suggesting a flexible and more contextualized deployment of attentional resources in face processing
The Simon effect with saccadic eye movements
No full textIn the Simon effect performance is faster and more accurate when the task-irrelevant spatial dimension of the stimulus corresponds to the location of the response, compared to when they do not correspond. In the prosaccade-antisaccade effect the latencies of saccades away from the stimulus location (i.e., antisaccades) are slower than latencies of saccades toward the stimulus location (i.e., prosaccades). Because these two effects share a similar basis, the study of the Simon effect with saccadic eye movements needs to be decoupled from the prosaccade-antisaccade effect. A standard Simon task (Experiment 1) and a Simon task in which a distractor stimulus was also presented (Experiment 2) were implemented. In Experiment 1, results showed an effect likely attributable to the sum of the Simon effect and the prosaccade-antisaccade effect. In Experiment 2, in which the difference between the prosaccade and antisaccade was eliminated, only a Simon effect, cognitive in nature, manifested itself
Visual search during motion perception
No full textEye movements during motion tracking or smooth pursuit have been widely investigated. However, it is still unclear how eye movements and motion perception system are related. We aim to analyze the pattern of gaze during coherent motion perception in absence of tracking at the very early stage of the motion perception process. Moreover, we would measure if good performances in motion perception are guided by specific gaze pattern. We measured the gaze in twenty-five healthy subjects using eye tracker system (SMI500) during motion perception tasks (coherent motion test), and during visual search of static elements (i.e. searching coloured dots within a group of white dots). The subjects are divided in two groups: good motion perception performers (scoring above the 50% of the total trials) and bad motion performers. The gaze is analyzed by means of specific parameters obtained from the eye movements recordings: the length of the eye movement track plotted on a bidimensional plane, the area of the confidence ellipse of the eye position, the standardized length (obtained by the ratio between the length and the area of the confidence ellipse), the flattening and the slope of the confidence ellipse. Significant differences in gaze patterns are found between motion perception and static visual search tasks. The gaze during motion perception is characterized by stronger flattening of confidence ellipse and longer length of eye movement track. The good performers have significantly longer length and standardized length of the eye movements track as compared to bad performers. These results show that the motion detection requires longer gaze path with respect to static visual search and that the path length is longer in good than in bad performers. In conclusion, the efficiency in motion detection is related to longer length of the gaze path (i.e. mean velocity) more than to the area scanned by the different gaze positions
Le sotto-categorie dei concetti astratti: uno studio empirico
No full textTo explain how abstract concepts, like “truth”, are represented is pivotal for embodied and grounded theories, according to which concepts are grounded in sensorimotor system. An important novelty in recent literature is the recognition that abstract concepts are not a unitary whole, but there might exist sub-kinds of abstract concepts, that are differently represented. Some studies have started to explore the differences between abstract concepts, such as mathematical, emotional, institutional and social concepts. However, an accurate classification has not yet been provided. The aim of our work is to identify fine-grained differences between abstract concepts. We selected 425 abstract words and classified them into preexisting and new categories of concepts: mathematical and logic, social, linguistics, institutional, temporal, spatial, mental states, characteristics of the self, events, pure abstract, imaginary, knowledge areas, cognitive processes, bodily states and physical. A sample of 240 participants rated words on a 7-points Likert-type scale on various dimensions. Aside classical dimensions, like concreteness, abstractness, and imageability, we considered novel dimensions highlighted by recent studies: age and modality of acquisition (perceptual vs linguistic); valence (positive and negative); social dimension; Body-object interaction; perceptual modality and interoception. Preliminary results highlighted a distinction between two macro-kinds of concepts, characterized by a different level of grounding. “Emotions” and “Bodily states” obtained higher BOI and interoception ratings than other categories. “Institutional concepts” and “Knowledge domains” were judged with higher MoA, i.e. mostly linguistically acquired. Our results suggest that differences in concepts kinds thus do not depend only on content but also on mechanisms like interoception and language activation
L'effetto Simon: il suo decorso temporale con stimoli visivi e risposte oculo-motorie
No full textL’effetto Simon consiste in una prestazione più veloce ed accurata quando
la posizione della risposta corrisponde alla posizione dello stimolo anche se questa
non è rilevante per il compito. Il presente lavoro ha studiato l’emergere dell’effetto Simon
e il suo decorso temporale con stimoli visivi e risposte oculo-motorie utilizzando
un paradigma di tipo standard: stimoli e risposte condividevano infatti una relazione
anatomico-spaziale. I risultati hanno mostrato un effetto (1) ampio e significativo sia
nei tempi di reazione saccadici che negli errori e (2) con un decorso temporale descrescente,
supportando l’ipotesi che esso sia dovuto ad un meccanismo visuomotorio
Assessing Interpersonal Proximity Evaluation in the COVID-19 Era: Evidence From the Affective Priming Task
Full text linkSocial proximity has since ever been evaluated as positive. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically reduced our social relations to avoid spreading the contagion. The present study aims to investigate people's current assessment of social proximity by using an affective priming paradigm (APP). We hypothesized that if our evaluation of social proximity is positive, then words with positive valence (e.g., relaxed) should be processed faster when preceded by images of social proximity than social distancing. On the contrary, if our evaluation of social proximity is turning negative, then words with a negative valence (e.g., sad) should be processed faster when preceded by images of social proximity than social distancing. To this end, we presented participants with prime images showing line drawings representing humans in situations of proximity or distancing and asked them to evaluate the valence (i.e., positive or negative) of a subsequent target word. In a follow-up session, the same participants evaluated the prime images as being positively or negatively valenced. Results showed that a large subset of participants who rated the prime images of social proximity as positive also processed positive words faster when these were preceded by images of social proximity than social distancing. Conversely, a smaller subset of participants who rated the prime images of social proximity as less positive processed negative words faster when these were preceded by images of social proximity than social distancing. These results suggest individual differences in the assessment of social proximity likely driven by the pandemic
Do my hands prime your hands? The hand-to-response correspondence effect
Full text linkPrevious research has shown an effect of handle-response correspondence on key-press responses when participants judged the upright or inverted orientation of photographed one-handled graspable objects. In three experiments, we explored whether this effect still holds for symmetric graspable objects that are usually grasped by two hands (i.e. two-handled objects; e.g. shears). In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were required to perform a between-hand response in order to categorize cooking or amusement objects appearing as grasped from either an allocentric (Experiment 1) or an egocentric perspective (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, they were required to perform a within-hand response to categorize the same stimuli appearing as grasped from an egocentric perspective. Across all three experiments, results showed that categorization was more difficult when the objects were displayed as grasped on the opposite side than the response rather than on the same side. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of action potentiation and spatial coding and suggest that different mechanisms may be recruited depending on the required action (i.e. response mode)
Clock walking and gender. How circular movements influence arithmetic calculations
Full text linkStarting from a rich body of evidence on the strict bidirectional relationship between numerical cognition and action processes, the present study aims at deepening the existing knowledge of the influence of body movement on arithmetic calculation. Numerous studies have shown that moving the body along the vertical or the horizontal axis could facilitate calculations such as additions and subtractions. More specifically, results showed an effect of congruence between the type of operation (additions vs. subtractions) and the direction of the movement performed (up/right or down/left). While this congruence effect is present for both additions and subtractions when the axis of action is vertical, when the axis of action is horizontal, the effect appears only for additions. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of circular motion, which has so far not been explored, on counting. Participants were asked to count by adding or subtracting "three," while performing a circular motion (i.e., a clockwise or counterclockwise movement), in an active (i.e., walking) or passive mode (i.e., being pushed on a wheelchair). Results showed a congruence effect for additions calculated in the active modality and only for male participants. Implications of the results for theories of embodied cognition and for the debate on gender differences in mathematical skills are discussed in this pape
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