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- embodied cognition (9)
- numerical cognition (6)
- SNARC (4)
- mental number line (4)
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In numerical processing, the functional role of Spatial-Numerical Associations (SNAs, such as the association of smaller numbers with left space and larger numbers with right space, the Mental Number Line hypothesis) is debated. Most studies demonstrate SNAs with lateralized responses, and there is little evidence that SNAs appear when no response is required. We recorded passive holding grip forces in no-go trials during number processing. In Experiment 1, participants performed a surface numerical decision task (“Is it a number or a letter?”). In Experiment 2, we used a deeper semantic task (“Is this number larger or smaller than five?”). Despite instruction to keep their grip force constant, participants' spontaneous grip force changed in both experiments: Smaller numbers led to larger force increase in the left than in the right hand in the numerical decision task (500–700 ms after stimulus onset). In the semantic task, smaller numbers again led to larger force increase in the left hand, and larger numbers increased the right-hand holding force. This effect appeared earlier (180 ms) and lasted longer (until 580 ms after stimulus onset). This is the first demonstration of SNAs with passive holding force. Our result suggests that (1) explicit motor response is not a prerequisite for SNAs to appear, and (2) the timing and strength of SNAs are task-dependent. (216 words).
Peripersonal space is the space surrounding our body, where multisensory integration of stimuli and action execution take place. The size of peripersonal space is flexible and subject to change by various personal and situational factors. The dynamic representation of our peripersonal space modulates our spatial behaviors towards other individuals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this spatial behavior was modified by two further factors: social distancing and wearing a face mask. Evidence from offline and online studies on the impact of a face mask on pro-social behavior is mixed. In an attempt to clarify the role of face masks as pro-social or anti-social signals, 235 observers participated in the present online study. They watched pictures of two models standing at three different distances from each other (50, 90 and 150 cm), who were either wearing a face mask or not and were either interacting by initiating a hand shake or just standing still. The observers’ task was to classify the model by gender. Our results show that observers react fastest, and therefore show least avoidance, for the shortest distances (50 and 90 cm) but only when models wear a face mask and do not interact. Thus, our results document both pro- and anti-social consequences of face masks as a result of the complex interplay between social distancing and interactive behavior. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) both are rare genetic neuromuscular diseases with progressive loss of motor ability. The neuromotor developmental course of those diseases is well documented. In contrast, there is only little evidence about characteristics of general and specific cognitive development. In both conditions the final motor outcome is characterized by an inability to move autonomously: children with SMA never accomplish independent motoric exploration of their environment, while children with DMD do but later lose this ability again. These profound differences in developmental pathways might affect cognitive development of SMA vs. DMD children, as cognition is shaped by individual motor experiences. DMD patients show impaired executive functions, working memory, and verbal IQ, whereas only motor ability seems to be impaired in SMA. Advanced cognitive capacity in SMA may serve as a compensatory mechanism for achieving in education, career progression, and social satisfaction. This study aimed to relate differences in basic numerical concepts and arithmetic achievement in SMA and DMD patients to differences in their motor development and resulting sensorimotor and environmental experiences. Horizontal and vertical spatial-numerical associations were explored in SMA/DMD children ranging between 6 and 12 years through the random number generation task. Furthermore, arithmetic skills as well as general cognitive ability were assessed. Groups differed in spatial number processing as well as in arithmetic and domain-general cognitive functions. Children with SMA showed no horizontal and even reversed vertical spatial-numerical associations. Children with DMD on the other hand revealed patterns in spatial numerical associations comparable to healthy developing children. From the embodied Cognition perspective, early sensorimotor experience does play a role in development of mental number representations. However, it remains open whether and how this becomes relevant for the acquisition of higher order cognitive and arithmetic skills.
The Human Takes It All
(2020)
Background: The increasing involvement of social robots in human lives raises the question as to how humans perceive social robots. Little is known about human perception of synthesized voices.
Aim: To investigate which synthesized voice parameters predict the speaker's eeriness and voice likability; to determine if individual listener characteristics (e.g., personality, attitude toward robots, age) influence synthesized voice evaluations; and to explore which paralinguistic features subjectively distinguish humans from robots/artificial agents.
Methods: 95 adults (62 females) listened to randomly presented audio-clips of three categories: synthesized (Watson, IBM), humanoid (robot Sophia, Hanson Robotics), and human voices (five clips/category). Voices were rated on intelligibility, prosody, trustworthiness, confidence, enthusiasm, pleasantness, human-likeness, likability, and naturalness. Speakers were rated on appeal, credibility, human-likeness, and eeriness. Participants' personality traits, attitudes to robots, and demographics were obtained.
Results: The human voice and human speaker characteristics received reliably higher scores on all dimensions except for eeriness. Synthesized voice ratings were positively related to participants' agreeableness and neuroticism. Females rated synthesized voices more positively on most dimensions. Surprisingly, interest in social robots and attitudes toward robots played almost no role in voice evaluation. Contrary to the expectations of an uncanny valley, when the ratings of human-likeness for both the voice and the speaker characteristics were higher, they seemed less eerie to the participants. Moreover, when the speaker's voice was more humanlike, it was more liked by the participants. This latter point was only applicable to one of the synthesized voices. Finally, pleasantness and trustworthiness of the synthesized voice predicted the likability of the speaker's voice. Qualitative content analysis identified intonation, sound, emotion, and imageability/embodiment as diagnostic features.
Discussion: Humans clearly prefer human voices, but manipulating diagnostic speech features might increase acceptance of synthesized voices and thereby support human-robot interaction. There is limited evidence that human-likeness of a voice is negatively linked to the perceived eeriness of the speaker.
Commentary
(2020)
The closer the better
(2012)
A growing literature has suggested that processing of visual information presented near the hands is facilitated. In this study, we investigated whether the near-hands superiority effect also occurs with the hands moving. In two experiments, participants performed a cyclical bimanual movement task requiring concurrent visual identification of briefly presented letters. For both the static and dynamic hand conditions, the results showed improved letter recognition performance with the hands closer to the stimuli. The finding that the encoding advantage for near-hand stimuli also occurred with the hands moving suggests that the effect is regulated in real time, in accordance with the concept of a bimodal neural system that dynamically updates hand position in external space.
Idioms in the World
(2019)
We examined the spontaneous association between numbers and space by documenting attention deployment and the time course of associated spatial-numerical mapping with and without overt oculomotor responses. In Experiment 1, participants maintained central fixation while listening to number names. In Experiment 2, they made horizontal target-direct saccades following auditory number presentation. In both experiments, we continuously measured spontaneous ocular drift in horizontal space during and after number presentation. Experiment 2 also measured visual-probe-directed saccades following number presentation. Reliable ocular drift congruent with a horizontal mental number line emerged during and after number presentation in both experiments. Our results provide new evidence for the implicit and automatic nature of the oculomotor resonance effect associated with the horizontal spatial-numerical mapping mechanism.
There is evidence both for mental number representations along a horizontal mental number line with larger numbers to the right of smaller numbers (for Western cultures) and a physically grounded, vertical representation where “more is up.” Few studies have compared effects in the horizontal and vertical dimension and none so far have combined both dimensions within a single paradigm where numerical magnitude was task-irrelevant and none of the dimensions was primed by a response dimension. We now investigated number representations over both dimensions, building on findings that mental representations of numbers and space co-activate each other. In a Go/No-go experiment, participants were auditorily primed with a relatively small or large number and then visually presented with quasi-randomly distributed distractor symbols and one Arabic target number (in Go trials only). Participants pressed a central button whenever they detected the target number and elsewise refrained from responding. Responses were not more efficient when small numbers were presented to the left and large numbers to the right. However, results indicated that large numbers were associated with upper space more strongly than small numbers. This suggests that in two-dimensional space when no response dimension is given, numbers are conceptually associated with vertical, but not horizontal space.
The aim of the present study was to test the functional relevance of the spatial concepts UP or DOWN for words that use these concepts either literally (space) or metaphorically (time, valence). A functional relevance would imply a symmetrical relationship between the spatial concepts and words related to these concepts, showing that processing words activate the related spatial concepts on one hand, but also that an activation of the concepts will ease the retrieval of a related word on the other. For the latter, the rotation angle of participant's body position was manipulated either to an upright or a head-down tilted body position to activate the related spatial concept. Afterwards participants produced in a within-subject design previously memorized words of the concepts space, time and valence according to the pace of a metronome. All words were related either to the spatial concept UP or DOWN. The results including Bayesian analyses show (1) a significant interaction between body position and words using the concepts UP and DOWN literally, (2) a marginal significant interaction between body position and temporal words and (3) no effect between body position and valence words. However, post-hoc analyses suggest no difference between experiments. Thus, the authors concluded that integrating sensorimotor experiences is indeed of functional relevance for all three concepts of space, time and valence. However, the strength of this functional relevance depends on how close words are linked to mental concepts representing vertical space.