Matheson Heath, Newman Aaron J, Satel Jason, McMullen Patricia
Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Life Sciences Center, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4J1, Canada.
Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Life Sciences Center, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4J1, Canada.
Brain Cogn. 2014 Apr;86:17-23. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2014.01.013. Epub 2014 Feb 18.
Previous research has demonstrated that people are faster at making a manual response with the hand that is aligned with the handle of a manipulable object compared to its functional end. According to theories of embodied cognition (ETC), the presentation of a manipulable object automatically elicits sensorimotor simulations of the respective hand and these simulations facilitate the response. However, an alternative interpretation of these data is that handles preferentially attract visual attention, since attended stimuli and locations typically elicit faster responses. We investigated attentional biases elicited by manipulable and non-manipulable objects using event-related-potentials (ERPs). On each trial, a picture of a manipulable object was followed by a target dot that participants had to make a button-press to. The dot was located at either the handle or functional end of the object. Consistent with previous attentional cuing paradigms, we showed that the P1 ERP component was greater in response to targets cued by handles than by functional ends. These results suggest that object handles automatically bias covert attentional processes. These attentional biases may account for earlier behavioural findings, without any recourse to ETC.
先前的研究表明，与可操纵物体的功能端相比，人们用与可操纵物体手柄对齐的手做出手动反应的速度更快。根据具身认知理论（ETC），可操纵物体的呈现会自动引发相应手部的感觉运动模拟，这些模拟促进了反应。然而，对这些数据的另一种解释是，手柄优先吸引视觉注意力，因为被关注的刺激和位置通常会引发更快的反应。我们使用事件相关电位（ERP）研究了可操纵和不可操纵物体引发的注意力偏差。在每次试验中，一个可操纵物体的图片之后会出现一个目标点，参与者必须对其进行按键操作。该点位于物体的手柄或功能端。与先前的注意力提示范式一致，我们发现，与功能端提示的目标相比，P1 ERP成分对由手柄提示的目标反应更大。这些结果表明，物体手柄会自动使隐蔽的注意力过程产生偏差。这些注意力偏差可能解释了早期的行为学发现，而无需借助具身认知理论。
