“School of Cognitive Sciences”
Back to Papers HomeBack to Papers of School of Cognitive Sciences
| Paper IPM / Cognitive Sciences / 17805 |
|
||||||||
| Abstract: | |||||||||
|
Spatial configurations amongst stimuli can influence magnitude attributions. Someoneâs acquired reading and writing direction (RWD) can provide a spatial schema of primacy extending from left (maximum) to right (minimum) for Westerners and opposite for leftward RWD languages. Primacy information can be transformed into a magnitude attribution regarding a feature quality, perceiving an object as having âmoreâ of a certain quality for Westerners when positioned left amongst two similar objects, likewise when positioned right for people with a right-to-left RWD. Results showed that native English speakers tended to attribute greater magnitude of a given feature in fictitious products displayed left within a pair, indicating which of two products was âmostâ representative of a certain quality (Experiment 1a) but they would randomly choose when asked which product represented âleastâ of the quality (Experiment 1b). A similar, but reversed pattern of effects was obtained for Farsi participants only familiar with Farsi (Experiment 2).
Download TeX format |
|||||||||
| back to top | |||||||||
