Boiteau Timothy W, Smith Cameron, Almor Amit
Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA.
Institute for Mind and Brain, University of South Carolina, 1800 Gervais St., Columbia, SC, 29201, USA.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2017 Apr;79(3):989-999. doi: 10.3758/s13414-016-1271-8.
A number of studies have shown a relationship between comprehending transitive sentences and spatial processing (e.g., Chatterjee, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(2), 55-61, 2001), in which there is an advantage for responding to images that depict the agent of an action to the left of the patient. Boiteau and Almor (Cognitive Science, 2016) demonstrated that a similar effect is found for pure linguistic information, such that after reading a sentence, identifying a word that had appeared earlier as the agent is faster on the left than on the right, but only for left-hand responses. In this study, we examined the role of lateralized manual motor processes in this effect and found that such spatial effects occur even when only the responses, but not the stimuli, have a spatial dimension. In support of the specific role of manual motor processes, we found a response-space effect with manual but not with pedal responses. Our results support an effector-specific (as opposed to an effector-general) hypothesis: Manual responses showed spatial effects compatible with those in previous research, whereas pedal responses did not. This is consistent with theoretical and empirical work arguing that the hands are generally involved with, and perhaps more sensitive to, linguistic information.
多项研究表明，理解及物句子与空间处理之间存在关联（例如，Chatterjee，《认知科学趋势》，第5卷第2期，第55 - 61页，2001年），即对描绘动作执行者在患者左侧的图像做出反应具有优势。Boiteau和Almor（《认知科学》，2016年）证明，对于纯语言信息也能发现类似效应，即在读完一个句子后，将之前出现的作为执行者的单词识别为左侧的速度比右侧快，但仅适用于左手反应。在本研究中，我们考察了偏侧化手动运动过程在这种效应中的作用，发现即使只有反应具有空间维度而刺激没有时，这种空间效应仍然会出现。为了支持手动运动过程的特定作用，我们发现手动反应存在反应空间效应，而踏板反应则没有。我们的结果支持一种效应器特异性（而非效应器一般性）假设：手动反应显示出与先前研究中一致的空间效应，而踏板反应则没有。这与理论和实证研究结果一致，这些研究认为手通常与语言信息相关，并且可能对语言信息更敏感。
