School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Australia.
Cognition. 2011 Jun;119(3):430-7. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.02.007. Epub 2011 Mar 5.
The concept of property is integral to personal and societal development, yet understanding of the cognitive basis of ownership is limited. Objects are the most basic form of property, so our physical interactions with owned objects may elucidate nuanced aspects of ownership. We gave participants a coffee mug to decorate, use and keep. The experimenter also designed a mug of her own. In Experiment 1, participants performed natural lifting actions with each mug. Participants lifted the Experimenter's mug with greater care, and moved it slightly more towards the Experimenter, while they lifted their own mug more forcefully and drew it closer to their own body. In Experiment 2, participants responded to stimuli presented on the mug handles in a computer-based stimulus-response compatibility task. Overall, participants were faster to respond in trials in which the handles were facing in the same direction as the response location compared to when the handles were facing away. The compatibility effect was abolished, however, for the Experimenter's mug--as if the action system is blind to the potential for action towards another person's property. These findings demonstrate that knowledge of the ownership status of objects influences visuomotor processing in subtle and revealing ways.
财产的概念是个人和社会发展不可或缺的，但对所有权认知基础的理解是有限的。物体是财产的最基本形式，因此我们与所拥有物体的物理交互可能阐明了所有权的细微方面。我们给参与者一个咖啡杯来装饰、使用和保留。实验者也设计了一个自己的杯子。在实验 1 中，参与者用每个杯子进行自然的提起动作。参与者提起实验者的杯子时更加小心，并且稍微向实验者移动，而他们提起自己的杯子时则更加用力，并将其拉向自己的身体。在实验 2 中，参与者在基于计算机的刺激-反应相容性任务中对杯子手柄上呈现的刺激做出反应。总的来说，与手柄朝向与反应位置相反的情况相比，当手柄朝向相同方向时，参与者在试验中更快地做出反应。然而，对于实验者的杯子，这种兼容性效应被消除了——就好像动作系统对他人财产的潜在动作是盲目的。这些发现表明，对物体所有权状态的了解以微妙和有启发性的方式影响视觉运动处理。
