What is agentic about the Spatial Agency Bias? How pragmatic relevance contributes to the spatial representations of actions

The mental imagination of (social) actions has been shown to follow a left‐to‐right trajectory, with the thematic agent associated with the left position (Spatial Agency Bias, Suitner & Maass in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 53, 2016, p. 245–301). For example, individuals asked to choose a picture that visualizes the sentence “Tom kicks George” tend to choose an image where the agent, Tom, is positioned on the left‐hand side rather than on the right‐hand side. However, as an alternative to the thematic role of the agent, such findings may reflect a mental representation following pragmatic relevance. Specifically, a pragmatic perspective holds that word order and syntactic functions are strategic devices to communicate that the element is important for the sentence. Thus, positioning in the described picture‐matching task may actually reflect the agent's pragmatic relevance instead of agency per se. As a test, we vary whether sentences are written in the active versus the passive voice. Results from five studies indicate that the passive voice results in the tendency to place the agent on the right‐hand side rather than on the left‐hand side of a picture. Instead, the acted‐upon person is positioned on the left‐hand side of a picture. A sixth experiment reveals that for the passive voice, the agent is still seen as more agentic than the receiver, but is considered less relevant. The findings are congruent with the proposed pragmatic relevance account. Implications for the Spatial Agency Bias as well as for building mental representations in general are discussed.     

Counterexample Search in Diagram-Based Geometric Reasoning

Topological relations such as inside, outside, or intersection are ubiquitous to our spatial thinking. Here, we examined how people reason deductively with topological relations between points, lines, and circles in geometric diagrams. We hypothesized in particular that a counterexample search generally underlies this type of reasoning. We first verified that educated adults without specific math training were able to produce correct diagrammatic representations contained in the premisses of an inference. Our first experiment then revealed that subjects who correctly judged an inference as invalid almost always produced a counterexample to support their answer. Noticeably, even if the counterexample always bore a certain level of similarity to the initial diagram, we observed that an object was more likely to be varied between the two drawings if it was present in the conclusion of the inference. Experiments 2 and 3 then directly probed counterexample search. While participants were asked to evaluate a conclusion on the basis of a given diagram and some premisses, we modulated the difficulty of reaching a counterexample from the diagram. Our results indicate that both decreasing the counterexample density and increasing the counterexample distance impaired reasoning performance. Taken together, our results suggest that a search procedure for counterexamples, which proceeds object-wise, could underlie diagram-based geometric reasoning. Transposing points, lines, and circles to our spatial environment, the present study may ultimately provide insights on how humans reason about topological relations between positions, paths, and regions.     

Gradedness of visual awareness depends on attentional scope: Global perception is more graded than local perception

The gradedness or discreteness of our visual awareness has been debated. Here, we investigate the influence of spatial scope of attention on the gradedness of visual awareness. We manipulated scope of attention using hierarchical letter-based tasks (global: broad scope; local: narrow scope). Participants reported the identity of a masked hierarchical letter either at the global level or at the local level. We measured subjective awareness using the perceptual awareness scale ratings and objective performance. The results indicate more graded visual awareness (lesser slope for the awareness rating curve) at the global level compared to the local level. Graded perception was also observed in visibility ratings usage with global level task showing higher usage of the middle PAS ratings. Our results are in line with the prediction of level of processing hypothesis and show that global/local attentional scope and contextual endogenous factors influence the graded nature of our visual awareness.     

A two-part evaluation approach for measuring the usability and user experience of an Augmented Reality-based assistance system to support the temporal coordination of spatially dispersed teams

One key predictor of team performance and productivity is the teams’ ability to coordinate its subtasks as precisely as possible over time. Thereby, the quality of the temporal coordination in teams is highly dependent on several cognitive team skills, like for instance the ability to build a precise and stable mental model of the situation (shared situation awareness) and of the team task process (task state awareness/ TSA). To support these cognitive skills in teams, various methods and trainings already exist. However, considering teams that work de-located, the prerequisites and therefore the requirements for team supportive methods change. This work presents the results of an empirical usability and user experience (UX) study of an interface for an Augmented Reality-based assistance system for spatially dispersed teams, called Ambient Awareness Tool (AAT). The AAT interface consists of graphical information about the teamwork process and aims at enhancing the TSA of the team, thereby supporting its temporal coordination. Within the framework of a participatory design process we conducted a two-part expert-user-study, comprising a laboratory experiment for the evaluation of the interface usability and a follow-up online survey to additionally investigate the UX. By means of the usability scores we first inferred three interface configuration clusters. A subsequent UX evaluation then allowed us to designate the configuration cluster with the highest usability and UX scores. As a result, we defined one interface configuration that will be investigated concerning its actual impact on the temporal coordination of spatially dispersed teams in a further study.     

Collective memories,emotions, and spatial tactics in social movements: The case of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong

Recent studies have increasingly acknowledged the dynamic relationship between emotions and space in social movements. They, however, have seldom tied emotions and space to time when discussing activists’ emotions and their tactical choices. This paper studies the 2014 Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong and explores how collective memory and generational experiences—two intertwined notions of time—shaped how activists felt and how they designed and deployed a spatial tactic. The Umbrella Movement was characterized by miscellaneous emotions and intense disputes among activists regarding how to best use spatial occupation to fight for democratization before and during the struggle. Using a qualitative dataset that contains textual and interview data, I argue that while emotions and the political-cultural characteristics of contentious space were two factors in informing tactical choices, collective memory and generational experiences were key to understanding the rise of the movement and its characteristics. Experiencing different political events in their years of early adulthood, young and veteran activists felt differently in the context of 2013–2014, which led them to embrace disjunctive views on the pace, sequence, and bodily action for the same tactic of spatial occupation and dissimilar emotional management strategies. This created ongoing internal clashes before and during the movement.     

Rats use a sense of direction to alternate on T-mazes located in adjacent rooms

Lister hooded rats were trained on a forced-sample T-maze alternation task in an environment lacking spatial landmarks. An early study of spontaneous alternation on the T-maze had shown that rats use a "spatial sense" to select alternate maze arms across mazes. As this phenomenon may provide a useful tool for studying the neural substrates of a directional sense, we wished to confirm this finding on a different version of the T-maze task, with well-trained animals. We found that rats successfully selected the appropriate maze arm when the choice phase of the task was presented on a second maze, oriented in the same direction, and located in an adjacent room. However, choice performance fell to chance level when the second maze was oriented 90° relative to the first. This result suggests that the rats do not simply alternate turns across the two environments, but rather that they rely on a sense of direction that is carried across environments. Electronic Publication     

Frontal-Lobe Involvement in Spatial Memory: Evidence from PET,fMRI, and Lesion Studies

Many studies have identified the prefrontal cortex as the brain area that is critical for spatial memory, both in humans and in other primates. Other studies, however, have failed to establish this relation. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to review the literature regarding the role of the human prefrontal lobe in spatial memory. This was done by examining the evidence obtained from neuropsychological patients and from studies using brain-imaging techniques (PET and fMRI). Evidence supporting the notion that the prefrontal cortex is extensively involved in spatial working memory was found. The majority of these studies, however, suggests that frontal-lobe involvement is not related to the type of material that is being processed (e.g., spatial vs. nonspatial), but to process-specific functions, such as encoding and retrieval. Theoretically, these functions could be linked to the central executive within Baddeley's working-memory model, or to recent theories that emphasize the various processes that play a role in working memory. Also, methodological issues were discussed. Further research is needed to enhance our understanding of the precise interaction of domain-specific and general processes.     

Selection and inhibition in infancy: evidence from the spatial negative priming paradigm

We used a spatial negative priming (SNP) paradigm to examine visual selective attention in infants and adults using eye movements as the motor selection measure. In SNP, when a previously ignored location becomes the target to be selected, responses to it are impaired, providing a measure of inhibitory selection. Each trial consisted of a prime and a probe, separated by 67, 200, or 550 ms interstimulus intervals (ISIs). In the prime, a target was accompanied by a distractor. In the probe, the target appeared either in the location formerly occupied by the distractor (ignored repetition) or in another location (control). Adults exhibited the SNP effect in all three ISI conditions, producing slower saccade latencies on ignored repetition versus control trials. The SNP effect obtained for infants only under 550 and 200 ms ISI conditions. These results suggest that important developments in visual selection are rooted in emerging inhibitory mechanisms.     

Orientational manoeuvres in the dark: dissociating allocentric and egocentric influences on spatial memory

Subjects in a darkroom saw an array of five phosphorescent objects on a circular table and, after a short delay, indicated which object had been moved. During the delay the subject, the table or a phosphorescent landmark external to the array was moved (a rotation about the centre of the table) either alone or together. The subject then had to indicate which one of the five objects had been moved. A fully factorial design was used to detect the use of three types of representations of object location: (i) visual snapshots; (ii) egocentric representations updated by self-motion; and (iii) representations relative to the external cue. Improved performance was seen whenever the test array was oriented consistently with any of these stored representations. The influence of representations (i) and (ii) replicates previous work. The influence of representation (iii) is a novel finding which implies that allocentric representations play a role in spatial memory, even over short distances and times. The effect of the external cue was greater when initially experienced as stable. Females out-performed males except when the array was consistent with self-motion but not visual snapshots. These results enable a simple egocentric model of spatial memory to be extended to address large-scale navigation, including the effects of allocentric knowledge, landmark stability and gender.     

Representation of two geometric features of the environment in the domestic chick (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Gallus gallus</Emphasis>)

We report experiments based on a novel test in domestic chicks (Gallus gallus), designed to examine the encoding of two different geometric features of an enclosed environment: relative lengths of the walls and amplitude of the corners. Chicks were trained to search for a food reward located in one corner of a parallelogram-shaped enclosure. Between trials, chicks were passively disoriented and the enclosure was rotated, making reorientation possible only on the basis of the internal spatial structure of the enclosure. In order to reorient, chicks could rely on two sources of information: the relative lengths of the walls of the enclosure (associated to their left-right sense order) and the angles subtended by walls at corners. Chicks learned the task choosing equally often the reinforced corner and its rotational equivalent. Results of tests carried out in novel enclosures, the shapes of which were chosen ad hoc (1) to induce reorientation based only on the ratio of walls lengths plus sense (rectangular enclosure), or (2) to induce reorientation based only on corner angles (rhombus-shaped enclosure), suggested that chicks encoded both features of the environment. In a third test, in which chicks faced a conflict between these geometric features (mirror parallelogram-shaped enclosure), reorientation seemed to depend on the salience of corner angles. These results shed light on the elements of the environmental geometry which control spatial reorientation, and broaden the knowledge on the geometric representation of space in animals.