The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2021 Mar;214:103264. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103264. Epub 2021 Feb 5.
Converging evidence has established that positive concepts presented on a computer screen are associated with upper regions of space, and negative concepts with a lower region of space. One explanation for this is that understanding positive or negative concepts requires the re-experiencing of direction, whereby "happy is up" and "sad is down." However, it is unclear how the regions of space are encoded in these paradigms, space can be encoded in relation to oneself (egocentrically) or in object centred coordinates that are independent of oneself (exocentrically). The current study compares exocentric and egocentric coding of space, using a variation of the Meier and Robinson (2004) paradigm. Participants were asked to evaluate valenced concepts in either the upper or lower half of the screen. Spatial primes were used such that the concepts were preceded by either an upwards or a downwards eye movement. Exocentric coding of space in this paradigm was the computer screen, whilst egocentric coding was the eye movement used to access the top or bottom of the screen. It was proposed that egocentric coding of space, being coded in the body, provides evidence of a stronger relationship between the original bodily state of 'up' or 'down' and subsequent simulation. However, significant results supported an exocentric coding of space, with faster responses to positive concepts in the upper half of the screen, and to negative concepts in the lower half, irrespective of the direction of the eye movement preceding it. The implications of this for embodied cognition are discussed.
越来越多的证据表明，计算机屏幕上呈现的积极概念与空间的上部区域相关联，而消极概念与空间的下部区域相关联。对此的一种解释是，理解积极或消极的概念需要重新体验方向，即“快乐是向上”和“悲伤是向下”。然而，目前尚不清楚这些范式中空间是如何编码的，空间可以与自身（自我中心）相关联，也可以与独立于自身的物体中心坐标（非自我中心）相关联。本研究使用 Meier 和 Robinson（2004）范式的变体，比较了空间的非自我中心和自我中心编码。要求参与者在屏幕的上半部分或下半部分评估有价值的概念。使用空间启动词，使概念之前有向上或向下的眼动。该范式中的空间非自我中心编码是计算机屏幕，而自我中心编码是用于访问屏幕顶部或底部的眼动。有人提出，空间的自我中心编码是在身体中进行的，这为“向上”或“向下”的原始身体状态与后续模拟之间的更强关系提供了证据。然而，有意义的结果支持空间的非自我中心编码，即对屏幕上半部分的积极概念和下半部分的消极概念的反应更快，而与之前的眼动方向无关。本文讨论了这对具身认知的影响。
