Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 9, 2026
06:43
The Crossmodal Congruency Task as a Means to Obtain an Objective Behavioral Measure in the Rubber Hand Illusion Paradigm
Published on: July 26, 2013
16.7K
The Mental Timeline in a Crossed-Hands Paradigm
Irmgard de la Vega1, Verena Eikmeier1, Rolf Ulrich1
11 Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Experimental Psychology
|January 7, 2017
Summary
The mental timeline, typically mapping past to left and future to right, is influenced by external cues. Instructions focusing on response keys, not hands, shape this spatial-temporal association.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Spatial Cognition
Background:
- A lateral mental timeline is established, associating past with left and future with right in writing cultures.
- This association typically remains even when using crossed hands for responses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the influence of instructional cues on the spatial-temporal association in a crossed-hands paradigm.
- To determine whether instructions about hand or key response modulate the mental timeline.
Main Methods:
- Participants classified temporal word references using crossed hands (right hand left, left hand right).
- Two instruction groups were used: one instructed by hand, the other by key.
- Response times to temporal words were analyzed based on instruction type.
Main Results:
- An interaction between temporal reference (past/future) and response key was observed.
- This interaction was significant only for participants instructed to focus on the key, not the hand.
- This suggests extracorporal space plays a crucial role in mental timeline organization.
Conclusions:
- The mental timeline's spatial representation is adaptable and influenced by external factors.
- Instructional focus on response location (key) is more critical than hand laterality for spatial-temporal associations.
- This highlights the role of external spatial cues in shaping internal cognitive representations.
