How Writing System and Age Influence Spatial Representations of Actions

Abstract

Recently, researchers reported a bias for placing agents predominantly on the left side of pictures. Both hemispheric specialization and cultural preferences have been hypothesized to be the origin of this bias. To evaluate these hypotheses, we conducted a study with participants exposed to different reading and writing systems: Germans, who use a left-to-right system, and Israelis, who use a right-to-left system. In addition, we manipulated the degree of exposure to the writing systems by testing preschoolers and adults. Participants heard agent-first or recipient-first sentences and were asked to draw the content of the sentences or to arrange transparencies of protagonists and objects such that their arrangement depicted the sentences. Although preschool-age children in both countries showed no directional bias, adults manifested a bias that was consistent with the writing system of their language. These results support the cultural hypothesis regarding the origin of spatial-representational biases.

A model for relational reasoning as verbal reasoning

“…we can assume that only model (1) will be used with the choice putatively influenced by cultural and/or biological aspects. There is vast evidence for a left to right bias on spatial routines (Chatterjee, Southwood, & Basilico, 1999;Dobel, Diesendruck, & Bö lte, 2007;Maass & Russo, 2003;Tversky, Kugelmass, & Winter, 1991). Cross-cultural studies suggest that this bias arises from the scanning habit induced by reading and writing direction predominantly used within a certain culture (e.g., Chan & Bergen, 2005;Dobel et al, 2007;Spalek & Hammad, 2005) and that this cultural bias influences spatial representations of objects.…”

“…There is vast evidence for a left to right bias on spatial routines (Chatterjee, Southwood, & Basilico, 1999;Dobel, Diesendruck, & Bö lte, 2007;Maass & Russo, 2003;Tversky, Kugelmass, & Winter, 1991). Cross-cultural studies suggest that this bias arises from the scanning habit induced by reading and writing direction predominantly used within a certain culture (e.g., Chan & Bergen, 2005;Dobel et al, 2007;Spalek & Hammad, 2005) and that this cultural bias influences spatial representations of objects. Another view is that the left to right bias arises from aspects fundamentally implemented in the functional architecture of our brains (e.g., Beaumont, 1985;Chatterjee, 2001;Chatterjee et al, 1999;Levy, 1976; for some culture-independent preferences in spatial reasoning, see for instance, Knauff & Ragni, in press).…”

Paying attention to reading direction

“…Furthermore, reading-direction habits were found to bias the spatial-representation direction of verbal action phrases 11,12 , such that sentence subject and object spatial representations were consistent with the reading direction of the participant's language. In all these studies, right-to-left readers showed biases in the opposite direction or showed no bias at all compared with left-to-right readers.…”

Spatial biases in understanding descriptions of static scenes: the role of reading and writing direction

“…For example, it has been shown that RWD is able to affect lowlevel skills such as word reading (Mishkin & Forgays, 1952), perceptual span (Pollatsek, Bolozky, Well, & Rayner, 1981), lateral motion perception (Maass, Pagani, & Berta, 2007), attention (Spalek & Hammad, 2005), exploration (Chokron & Imbert, 1993;Kugelmass & Lieblich, 1970), and hand movements in copying and drawing tasks (Nachshon, 1985;Shanon, 1979). More interesting for current concerns, RWD effects have been observed on the mental representation of highly abstract concepts, such as number magnitude (Dehaene, Bossini, & Giraux, 1993;Zebian, 2005), time (Fuhrman & Boroditsky, 2010;Ouellet, Santiago, Israeli, & Gabay, 2010;Tversky, Kugelmass, & Winter, 1991), events (Dobel, Diesendruck, & Bölte, 2007;Maass & Russo, 2003), letter sequences (Shaki & Gevers, 2011), and social groups differing in agentivity (Maass, Suitner, Favaretto, & Cignacchi, 2009). RWD is also able to bias the choice of behavioral alternatives (such as study items) from a list (Ariel, Al-Harthy, Was, & Dunlosky, 2011).…”