Bartlett Megan L, Scott Gwinn O, Thomas Nicole A, Nicholls Michael E R
School of Psychology, Flinders University, Australia.
School of Psychology, Flinders University, Australia.
Brain Cogn. 2020 Apr;140:105547. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105547. Epub 2020 Feb 14.
Neurologically healthy individuals exhibit subtle attentional asymmetries, such that attention is preferentially directed leftwards for objects in near space and rightwards for objects in far space. These attentional biases also affect navigation and cause people to deviate to the right when passing through an aperture. The current study examined whether the rightward deviations observed in real-world environments translate to simulated environments. As proof of concept and to determine whether rightward biases could be further exacerbated, the degree of cognitive load imposed on participants was manipulated. Experiment 1 asked participants to navigate through the centre of a computer-based doorway. In one block of trials, participants completed the task by itself (baseline condition), while in another block of trials they also completed a simple auditory discrimination task (load condition). While analyses revealed rightward biases for both conditions, the difference between conditions was not significant. Experiment 2 therefore increased the difficulty of the auditory task. Analyses revealed a significant difference between conditions, suggesting that the degree of cognitive load further exacerbates rightward biases, demonstrating that the rightward asymmetries in navigation observed in the real world generalises to a simulated environment and that this phenomenon behaves in a way that is consistent with pseudoneglect.
神经系统健康的个体表现出细微的注意力不对称，即对于近空间中的物体，注意力优先向左引导；对于远空间中的物体，注意力优先向右引导。这些注意力偏差也会影响导航，导致人们在穿过一个孔径时向右偏离。当前的研究考察了在现实世界环境中观察到的向右偏离是否会转化到模拟环境中。作为概念验证，并为了确定向右的偏差是否会进一步加剧，对施加给参与者的认知负荷程度进行了操控。实验1要求参与者穿过基于计算机的门道的中心。在一组试验中，参与者独自完成任务（基线条件），而在另一组试验中，他们还完成一项简单的听觉辨别任务（负荷条件）。虽然分析显示两种条件下都存在向右的偏差，但条件之间的差异并不显著。因此，实验2增加了听觉任务的难度。分析显示条件之间存在显著差异，表明认知负荷程度进一步加剧了向右的偏差，这表明在现实世界中观察到的导航中的向右不对称会推广到模拟环境中，并且这种现象的表现方式与假性忽视一致。
