Body-related components of action can be spatially coded along the size dimension
1Laboratoire sur les Interactions Cognition, Action, Emotion, UFR STAPS, Universite Paris Nanterre.
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This work aimed to examine whether the spatial representations of actions depend on the spatial features of the body components involved in those actions. I proposed that this is possible, but only when the responses cannot be spatially coded based on the spatial features of the actions' goal. I presented participants with large and small objects and instructed them to respond with either their palm-hand or index-digit based on the colour of the objects. Palm-hand or index-digit responses represented large and small responses, respectively, considering the size of the effector part used. The collected data confirmed this hypothesis. I found a size-based Simon effect, indicating that participants code the size of their responses based on the relative size of the body part used for responding (i.e., palm-hand vs. index-digit). This finding therefore suggests that the size-based Simon effect could serve as a valuable tool for implicitly assessing the metrics of body representation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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