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Updated: May 31, 2026
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Published on: March 10, 2021
The relationship between collisions and pseudoneglect: is it right?
Bianca Hatin1, Laurie Sykes Tottenham, Chris Oriet
1Department of Psychology, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. hatin11b@uregina.ca
Summary
People tend to collide more on the right side of doorways, a bias previously linked to pseudoneglect. However, this study found a leftward collision bias in navigation, unrelated to pseudoneglect or age, suggesting new explanations are needed.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Human Navigation
Background:
- A rightward collision bias in narrow doorways is often attributed to pseudoneglect, a tendency to neglect the right side of space.
- Pseudoneglect is typically measured using tasks like line bisection, where individuals may err leftward.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the pseudoneglect hypothesis for rightward collisions in doorways.
- To examine the influence of age, attention cuing, and concurrent motor activity on spatial biases during navigation.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted involving younger and older adults performing navigation and line bisection tasks.
- Participants completed tasks with and without a concurrent motor task, and with attention cued to different spatial locations.
Main Results:
- Contrary to the pseudoneglect hypothesis, a leftward collision bias was observed during navigation.
- This leftward bias was not significantly affected by age or attention cuing but was reduced by concurrent motor activity.
- Performance on navigation and line bisection tasks showed no correlation.
Conclusions:
- The observed leftward navigation bias is not explained by pseudoneglect.
- Factors such as concurrent motor activity may influence spatial biases differently in navigation compared to line bisection tasks.
- Alternative explanations are needed to account for spatial biases in human navigation.
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