Different grasping experiences affect mapping effects but not correspondence effects between stimulus size and...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human Factors
• Neuroscience

Background:

• The spatial-size association of response codes (SSARC) effect describes faster, more accurate left responses to small stimuli and right responses to large stimuli.
• The CORE principle suggests grasping habits (dominant hand for large objects, non-dominant for small) form spatial-size associations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if grasping habits causally influence the formation of spatial-size associations.
• To determine if object-grasping task mappings affect the SSARC effect in subsequent keypress response tasks.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed an object-grasping task with compatible (small-left; large-right) or incompatible (small-right; large-left) size-location mappings.
• Subsequent choice-response tasks involved keypress responses to stimulus size or color.

Main Results:

• A compatible grasping-task mapping led to a larger SSARC effect in the size discrimination task compared to an incompatible mapping.
• No significant difference in the SSARC effect was observed in the color discrimination task between mapping groups.
• Practice with size-location mappings modulated controlled, but not automatic, stimulus-response translation links.

Conclusions:

• Grasping habits play a causal role in the formation of spatial-size associations.
• Short-term practice with specific size-location mappings can alter these associations for controlled responses.
• The findings support the hypothesis that motor habits influence cognitive spatial representations.