Effects of Arm Crossing on Spatial Perspective-Taking

Abstract

Human social interactions often require people to take a different perspective than their own. Although much research has been done on egocentric spatial representation in a solo context, little is known about how space is mapped in relation to other bodies. Here we used a spatial perspective-taking paradigm to investigate whether observing a person holding his arms crossed over the body midline has an impact on the encoding of left/right and front/back spatial relations from that person’s perspective. In three experiments, we compared performance in a task in which spatial judgments were made from the perspective of the participant or from that of a co-experimenter. Depending on the experimental condition, the participant’s and the co-experimenter’s arms were either crossed or not crossed over the midline. Our results showed that crossing the arms had a specific effect on spatial judgments based on a first-person perspective. More specifically, the responses corresponding to the dominant hand side were slower in the crossed than in the uncrossed arms condition. Crucially, a similar effect was also found when the participants adopted the perspective of a person holding his arms crossed, but not when the other person’s arms were held in an unusual but uncrossed posture. Taken together these findings indicate that egocentric space and altercentric space are similarly coded in neurocognitive maps structured with respect to specific body segments.

Embodied perspective-taking indicated by selective disruption from aberrant self motion

“…The present results lend support for a separable embodied perspective-taking process that is distinct from perspective-taking achieved through the reconfiguration of spatial relationships from one’s own perspective (Gardner et al, 2013 ; Gronholm, Flynn, Edmonds, & Gardner, 2012 ; May & Wendt, 2012 ). In this respect, our findings are consistent with previous work also indicating an embodied mechanism that recruits sensorimotor resources (Becchio, Del Giudice, Dal Monte, Latini-Corazzini, & Pia, 2013 ; Conson et al, 2014 ; Furlanetto, Gallace, Ansuini, & Becchio, 2014 ; Gianelli, Farnè, Salemme, Jeannerod, & Roy, 2011 ; Kessler & Rutherford, 2010 ; Kessler & Thomson, 2010 ). One proposal is that embodied and non-embodied processes are in fact distinct routes modulated by strategy (Gardner et al, 2013 ; see also Crescentini, Fabbro, & Urgesi, 2014 ; Kaiser et al, 2008 ).…”

When Far Becomes Near

“…As found in previous work (Furlanetto et al, 2014), participants were more accurate when they responded from their own perspective (M = . .211 (Fig.…”

“…It may seem surprising that remapping also occurred in the absence of a body. The presence of a body anchor has been proposed to be necessary for embodiment of a third-person perspective (Gardner, Brazier, Edmonds, & Gronholm, 2013;Gianelli, Farnè, Salemme, Jeannerod, & Roy, 2011), and there is evidence that bodily features modulate spontaneous perspective taking (Tversky & Hard, 2009). However, these results may be related to understanding another person's action rather than to the presence of a body (Furlanetto et al, 2013;Zwickel, 2009).…”

“…Prior research sug-gests that with an egocentric frame of reference, relative times to identify objects at specific locations depend on body asymmetries, asymmetries in the world, and action possibilities (Franklin & Tversky, 1990). Right-handers, for instance, are faster to process objects on the right than objects on the left (Furlanetto, Gallace, Ansuini, & Becchio, 2014;Olson & Laxar, 1973). Moreover, reaction times (RTs) are generally proportional to the distance of the target, increasing as distance of the to-belocated objects increases (Sun & Wang, 2010).…”

Dissociating contributions of head and torso to spatial reference frames: The misalignment paradigm

“…Early studies in this area used unarticulated dolls as avatars, focusing principally on manipulations of the relative position of the avatar and the target object (Michelon & Zacks, 2006;Salatas & Flavell, 1976). More recent studies have investigated the extent to which such mental transformations are 'embodied' by manipulating proprioceptive input through changes in posture, specifically hand position relative to torso (Furlanetto, Gallace, Ansuini, & Becchio, 2014) and torso orientation (Kessler & Rutherford, 2010;Kessler & Thomson, 2010;Surtees et al, 2013b). …”