TY - JOUR A1 - Shaki, Samuel A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - Your neighbors define your value a study of spatial bias in number comparison JF - Acta psychologica : international journal of psychonomics N2 - Several chronometric biases in numerical cognition have informed our understanding of a mental number line (MNL). Complementing this approach, we investigated spatial performance in a magnitude comparison task. Participants located the larger or smaller number of a pair on a horizontal line representing the interval from 0 to 10. Experiments 1 and 2 used only number pairs one unit apart and found that digits were localized farther to the right with "select larger" instructions than with "select smaller" instructions. However, when numerical distance was varied (Experiment 3), digits were localized away from numerically near neighbors. This repulsion effect reveals context-specific distortions in number representation not previously noticed with chronometric measures. KW - Magnitude comparison KW - Mental number line KW - Numerical cognition KW - Spatial bias Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2013.01.004 SN - 0001-6918 VL - 142 IS - 3 SP - 308 EP - 313 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Scheepers, Christoph A1 - Mohr, Sibylle A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Roberts, Andrew M. T1 - Listening to Limericks - A Pupillometry Investigation of Perceivers' Expectancy JF - PLoS one N2 - What features of a poem make it captivating, and which cognitive mechanisms are sensitive to these features? We addressed these questions experimentally by measuring pupillary responses of 40 participants who listened to a series of Limericks. The Limericks ended with either a semantic, syntactic, rhyme or metric violation. Compared to a control condition without violations, only the rhyme violation condition induced a reliable pupillary response. An anomaly-rating study on the same stimuli showed that all violations were reliably detectable relative to the control condition, but the anomaly induced by rhyme violations was perceived as most severe. Together, our data suggest that rhyme violations in Limericks may induce an emotional response beyond mere anomaly detection. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0074986 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 8 IS - 9 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Roberts, Andrew Michael A1 - Stabler, Jane A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Otty, Lisa T1 - Space and pattern in linear and postlinear poetry empirical and theoretical approaches JF - European journal of English studies : official journal of the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) N2 - This article derives from two interdisciplinary research projects funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, involving the application of psychological experimental techniques to the study of poetic form and reader response. It discusses the semantic and expressive effects of space and pattern in innovative forms of contemporary British and American poetry. After referring to some historical and theoretical contexts for these issues, the article analyses the results of experiments using eye-tracking, manipulations of text, memory tests and readers' recorded responses and interpretations. The first group of poems studied were lineated, with extended spaces within lines and displacement of lines from the left margin. Referring to a poem from Geoffrey Hill'sCanaan(1996), the authors show that such use of space may serve to articulate syntactical structures, but may also promote richer interpretation by encouraging cross-linear semantic connections. The second technique studied was the break from linear into postlinear poetry, as an initially lineated sequence shifts to pages of dispersed text. In readings of Susan Howe'sPythagorean Silence(fromThe Europe of Trusts, 1990), the authors detected more radical effects of space, shape and pattern, with associated consequences for interpretative strategies and aesthetic responses. Finally, the article discusses the potential for both mutual support and heuristic challenge between an empirical study of reader response, and a historical-theoretical approach as exemplified by Jerome McGann's interpretation ofPythagorean Silence. KW - psycholinguistics KW - postlinear poetry KW - space in poetry KW - visual form KW - eye-tracking KW - empirical aesthetics KW - reader response KW - Susan Howe KW - Geoffrey Hill Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/13825577.2012.754967 SN - 1382-5577 SN - 1744-4233 VL - 17 IS - 1 SP - 23 EP - 40 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Myachykov, Andriy A1 - Ellis, Rob A1 - Cangelosi, Angelo A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - Visual and linguistic cues to graspable objects JF - Experimental brain research N2 - Two experiments investigated (1) how activation of manual affordances is triggered by visual and linguistic cues to manipulable objects and (2) whether graspable object parts play a special role in this process. Participants pressed a key to categorize manipulable target objects copresented with manipulable distractor objects on a computer screen. Three factors were varied in Experiment 1: (1) the target's and (2) the distractor's handles' orientation congruency with the lateral manual response and (3) the Visual Focus on one of the objects. In Experiment 2, a linguistic cue factor was added to these three factors-participants heard the name of one of the two objects prior to the target display onset. Analysis of participants' motor and oculomotor behaviour confirmed that perceptual and linguistic cues potentiated activation of grasp affordances. Both target- and distractor-related affordance effects were modulated by the presence of visual and linguistic cues. However, a differential visual attention mechanism subserved activation of compatibility effects associated with target and distractor objects. We also registered an independent implicit attention attraction effect from objects' handles, suggesting that graspable parts automatically attract attention during object viewing. This effect was further amplified by visual but not linguistic cues, thus providing initial evidence for a recent hypothesis about differential roles of visual and linguistic information in potentiating stable and variable affordances (Borghi in Language and action in cognitive neuroscience. Psychology Press, London, 2012). KW - Grasp affordances KW - Naming KW - Visual attention KW - Object categorization Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3616-z SN - 0014-4819 VL - 229 IS - 4 SP - 545 EP - 559 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - INPR A1 - Murray, Wayne S. A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Tatler, Benjamin W. T1 - Serial and parallel processes in eye movement control - current controversies and future directions T2 - The quarterly journal of experimental psychology N2 - In this editorial for the Special Issue on Serial and Parallel Processing in Reading we explore the background to the current debate concerning whether the word recognition processes in reading are strictly serialsequential or take place in an overlapping parallel fashion. We consider the history of the controversy and some of the underlying assumptions, together with an analysis of the types of evidence and arguments that have been adduced to both sides of the debate, concluding that both accounts necessarily presuppose some weakening of, or elasticity in, the eyemind assumption. We then consider future directions, both for reading research and for scene viewing, and wrap up the editorial with a brief overview of the following articles and their conclusions. KW - Serial and parallel KW - Eye movements KW - Reading KW - Scene perception KW - Modality KW - Modelling KW - Eyemind assumption KW - Decoupling KW - Alan Kennedy Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2012.759979 SN - 1747-0218 VL - 66 IS - 3 SP - 417 EP - 428 PB - Wiley CY - Hove ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ghahghaei, Saeideh A1 - Linnell, Karina J. A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Dubey, Amit A1 - Davis, Robert T1 - Effects of load on the time course of attentional engagement, disengagement, and orienting in reading JF - The quarterly journal of experimental psychology N2 - We examined how the frequency of the fixated word influences the spatiotemporal distribution of covert attention during reading. Participants discriminated gaze-contingent probes that occurred with different spatial and temporal offsets from randomly chosen fixation points during reading. We found that attention was initially focused at fixation and that subsequent defocusing was slower when the fixated word was lower in frequency. Later in a fixation, attention oriented more towards the next saccadic target for high- than for low-frequency words. These results constitute the first report of the time course of the effect of load on attentional engagement and orienting in reading. They are discussed in the context of serial and parallel models of reading. KW - Attention KW - Load KW - Reading KW - Time course KW - Word frequency KW - Engagement KW - Disengagement KW - Orienting Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2011.635795 SN - 1747-0218 VL - 66 IS - 3 SP - 453 EP - 470 PB - Wiley CY - Hove ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Riello, Marianna A1 - Giordano, Bruno L. A1 - Rusconi, Elena T1 - Singing numbers ... in cognitive space - a dual-task study of the link between pitch, space, and numbers JF - Topics in cognitive science N2 - We assessed the automaticity of spatial-numerical and spatial-musical associations by testing their intentionality and load sensitivity in a dual-task paradigm. In separate sessions, 16 healthy adults performed magnitude and pitch comparisons on sung numbers with variable pitch. Stimuli and response alternatives were identical, but the relevant stimulus attribute (pitch or number) differed between tasks. Concomitant tasks required retention of either color or location information. Results show that spatial associations of both magnitude and pitch are load sensitive and that the spatial association for pitch is more powerful than that for magnitude. These findings argue against the automaticity of spatial mappings in either stimulus dimension. KW - Auditory pitch KW - Dual task KW - Mental number line KW - SMARC KW - SNARC KW - Spatial coding Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12017 SN - 1756-8757 VL - 5 IS - 2 SP - 354 EP - 366 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Festman, Yariv A1 - Adam, Jos J. A1 - Pratt, Jay A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - Both hand position and movement direction modulate visual attention JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - The current study explored effects of continuous hand motion on the allocation of visual attention. A concurrent paradigm was used to combine visually concealed continuous hand movements with an attentionally demanding letter discrimination task. The letter probe appeared contingent upon the moving right hand passing through one of six positions. Discrimination responses were then collected via a keyboard press with the static left hand. Both the right hand's position and its movement direction systematically contributed to participants' visual sensitivity. Discrimination performance increased substantially when the right hand was distant from, but moving toward the visual probe location (replicating the far-hand effect, Festrnan et al., 2013). However, this effect disappeared when the probe appeared close to the static left hand, supporting the view that static and dynamic features of both hands combine in modulating pragmatic maps of attention. KW - embodied cognition KW - covert attention KW - hand dynamics KW - near-hand effect KW - perception Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00657 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 4 IS - 4 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Festman, Yariv A1 - Adam, Jos J. A1 - Pratt, Jay A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - Continuous hand movement induces a far-hand bias in attentional priority JF - Attention, perception, & psychophysics : AP&P ; a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc. N2 - Previous research on the interaction between manual action and visual perception has focused on discrete movements or static postures and discovered better performance near the hands (the near-hand effect). However, in everyday behaviors, the hands are usually moving continuously between possible targets. Therefore, the current study explored the effects of continuous hand motion on the allocation of visual attention. Eleven healthy adults performed a visual discrimination task during cyclical concealed hand movements underneath a display. Both the current hand position and its movement direction systematically contributed to participants' visual sensitivity. Discrimination performance increased substantially when the hand was distant from but moving toward the visual probe location (a far-hand effect). Implications of this novel observation are discussed. KW - Embodied perception KW - Attention: Selective KW - Goal-directed movements Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-013-0430-4 SN - 1943-3921 VL - 75 IS - 4 SP - 644 EP - 649 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - INPR A1 - Caligiore, Daniele A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - Vision, action and language unified through embodiment T2 - Psychological research : an international journal of perception, attention, memory, and action Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-012-0417-0 SN - 0340-0727 VL - 77 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 6 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER -