Asymmetries in representational drawing: Alternatives to a laterality account

Vaid, Jyotsna

doi:10.1515/9783110254310.231

Cited by 19 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(68 reference statements)

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“…Although reading habits have been considered as a main cultural factor in directionality research [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], reading directions do not seem to explain the cultural differences, at least in this perceptual evaluation task. As mentioned in the Introduction section, if one's reading direction enhances the preference for the facing direction that matches this habit, unidirectional English readers would show a larger bias than multidirectional Japanese readers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Most interestingly, the preferred direction varies considerably across cultures [4] (see for a recent review). In particular, participants' native reading and writing directions have attracted attention [5,6]. Typically, in most studies, participants are presented with an object's image and its mirror reversal and asked to decide which member looks better or is more aesthetically pleasing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cultural differences in preferred object orientation have been attributed to reading habits, in that people prefer object pictures possessing the same directionality as their reading habits [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. However, there are several difficulties in this account of the preferred facing direction of single static objects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Which Side Looks Better? Cultural Differences in Preference for Left- or Right-Facing Objects

et al. 2020

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An oblique view of three-dimensional objects is preferred over a frontal or lateral view, partly because it is more familiar and easily recognizable. However, which side of a symmetric object looks better remains unsolved. Reading direction, handedness, and the functionality of objects have been suggested as the potential sources of directional bias. In this study, participants of three online surveys (total N = 1082) were asked to choose one item that looked better or was more aesthetically pleasing; the test was performed between 100 pairs of left- and right-facing mirror-images. The results showed that Japanese participants (both vertical and left-to-right readers) and Israeli participants (right-to-left readers) preferred left-facing images over right-facing images, whereas American participants (left-to-right readers) preferred right-facing images over left-facing images. Weak effects of handedness and object functionality were also found: Left-handers tended to choose right-facing images more than right-handers, and the view of objects with a handle that is graspable by the dominant hand was more likely to be chosen over the opposite side view, regardless of culture. Although previous studies have emphasized the role of reading direction, a close look at the results suggests that it cannot fully account for the preferred facing direction of oblique objects.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Which Side Looks Better? Cultural Differences in Preference for Left- or Right-Facing Objects

et al. 2020

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“…Examples are perceptual span (Pollatsek et al, 1981), scanning direction (Chokron and Imbert, 1993), representations of numbers (Dehaene et al, 1993), time (Tversky et al, 1991) and aesthetic preferences (Chokron and De Agostini, 2000; for a more comprehensive list see Román et al, 2013). Presenting a review about directionality effects in various domains and tasks, Vaid (2010) concludes that a motoric account which is influenced by RWD is the most parsimonious explanation.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Literacy shapes thought: the case of event representation in different cultures

Dobel¹,

Enriquez‐Geppert²,

Zwitserlood³

et al. 2014

Front. Psychol.

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There has been a lively debate whether conceptual representations of actions or scenes follow a left-to-right spatial transient when participants depict such events or scenes. It was even suggested that conceptualizing the agent on the left side represents a universal. We review the current literature with an emphasis on event representation and on cross-cultural studies. While there is quite some evidence for spatial bias for representations of events and scenes in diverse cultures, their extent and direction depend on task demands, one‘s native language, and importantly, on reading and writing direction. Whether transients arise only in subject-verb-object languages, due to their linear sentential position of event participants, is still an open issue. We investigated a group of illiterate speakers of Yucatec Maya, a language with a predominant verb-object-subject structure. They were compared to illiterate native speakers of Spanish. Neither group displayed a spatial transient. Given the current literature, we argue that learning to read and write has a strong impact on representations of actions and scenes. Thus, while it is still under debate whether language shapes thought, there is firm evidence that literacy does.

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“…Asymmetry in scanning habit established through reading and writing in one particular direction over years has been proposed as one mechanism eliciting directional bias in tasks (un)related to reading and writing ( Kazandjian and Chokron, 2008 ; Vaid, 2011 ; Karim et al, 2016 ). For example, a bias in the direction of reading/writing habit has been found in the spatial representation of actions ( Maass and Russo, 2003 ; Dobel et al, 2007 ), line bisection ( Chokron and Imbert, 1993 ), aesthetic preferences ( Nachson et al, 1999 ; Chokron and De Agostini, 2000 ; Ishii et al, 2011 ), performance evaluation ( Maass et al, 2007 ) and the perception of motion ( Morikawa and McBeath, 1992 ) or speed ( Szego and Rutherford, 2008 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Directionality in Aesthetic Judgments and Performance Evaluation: Sport Judges and Laypeople Compared

2017

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Left-to-right readers are assumed to demonstrate a left-to-right bias in aesthetic preferences and performance evaluation. Here we tested the hypothesis that such bias occurs in left-to-right reading laypeople and gymnastic judges (n = 48 each) when asked to select the more beautiful image from a picture pair showing gymnastic or non-gymnastic actions (Experiment 1) and to evaluate videos of gymnasts’ balance beam performances (Experiment 2). Overall, laypeople demonstrated a stronger left-to-right bias than judges. Unlike judges, laypeople rated images with left-to-right trajectory as more beautiful than content-wise identical images with right-to-left trajectory (Experiment 1). Also, laypeople tended to award slightly more points to videos showing left-to-right as opposed to right-to-left oriented actions (Experiment 2); however, in contrast to initial predictions the effect was weak and statistically unreliable. Collectively, judges, when considered as a group, seem less prone to directional bias than laypeople, thus tentatively suggesting that directionality may be an issue for unskilled but not for skilled judging. Possible mechanisms underlying the skill effect in Experiment 1 and the absence of clear bias in Experiment 2 are discussed alongside propositions for a broadening of perspectives in future research.

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Asymmetries in representational drawing: Alternatives to a laterality account

Cited by 19 publications

References 60 publications

Which Side Looks Better? Cultural Differences in Preference for Left- or Right-Facing Objects

Which Side Looks Better? Cultural Differences in Preference for Left- or Right-Facing Objects

Literacy shapes thought: the case of event representation in different cultures

Directionality in Aesthetic Judgments and Performance Evaluation: Sport Judges and Laypeople Compared

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