Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.
Department of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.
Laterality. 2020 Jan;25(1):5-21. doi: 10.1080/1357650X.2019.1577433. Epub 2019 Feb 7.
People exhibit consistent leftward spatial biases across a variety of tasks. However, individuals with a native reading direction other than left-to-right (LTR) show an attenuation of the leftward bias. The current study used procedurally similar tasks to examine spatial ability and aesthetic preferences in LTR and right-to-left (RTL) groups. In the spatial task participants viewed a centred rectangle partially occluded by an overlapping circle and estimated the centre of the circle with a single mouse click. In the aesthetic task participants used the mouse to control a "virtual flashlight" to light images of abstract paintings in the most aesthetically pleasing way. Contrary to predictions, smaller errors were made for circles on the right and estimations were progressively less accurate as circle size increased in the spatial task. On the aesthetic task, light placements of LTR participants were biased to the left and significantly different from the slightly rightward placements of RTL participants. As predicted, when completing the aesthetics task amounts of time scanning left or right visual space were different between groups. Findings support the theory that directional scanning biases attenuate leftward lateral biases and further, the nature of the visuospatial task may vary the strength of lateral bias.
人们在各种任务中表现出一致的左侧空间偏向。然而，阅读方向与从左到右（LTR）不同的个体表现出左侧偏向的减弱。本研究使用程序相似的任务来检查 LTR 和从右到左（RTL）组的空间能力和审美偏好。在空间任务中，参与者观看一个被重叠圆部分遮挡的中心矩形，并使用单次鼠标点击估计圆的中心。在审美任务中，参与者使用鼠标控制“虚拟手电筒”以最具美感的方式照亮抽象画的图像。与预测相反，在空间任务中，圆在右侧时的误差较小，并且随着圆的大小增加，估计值的准确性逐渐降低。在审美任务中，LTR 参与者的灯光位置偏向左侧，与 RTL 参与者的略微右侧位置明显不同。如预测的那样，当完成审美任务时，两组之间扫描左右视觉空间的时间量不同。研究结果支持这样一种理论，即方向扫描偏差会减弱左侧横向偏差，而且视觉空间任务的性质可能会改变横向偏差的强度。
