Asymmetric Coding of Categorical Spatial Relations in Both Language and Vision

J C Roth,S L Franconeri

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00464

Abstract

Describing certain types of spatial relationships between a pair of objects requires that the objects are assigned different “roles” in the relation, e.g., “A is above B” is different than “B is above A.” This asymmetric representation places one object in the “target” or “figure” role and the other in the “reference” or “ground” role. Here we provide evidence that this asymmetry may be present not just in spatial language, but also in perceptual representations. More specifically, we describe a model of visual spatial relationship judgment where the designation of the target object within such a spatial relationship is guided by the location of the “spotlight” of attention. To demonstrate the existence of this perceptual asymmetry, we cued attention to one object within a pair by briefly previewing it, and showed that participants were faster to verify the depicted relation when that object was the linguistic target. Experiment 1 demonstrated this effect for left-right relations, and Experiment 2 for above-below relations. These results join several other types of demonstrations in suggesting that perceptual representations of some spatial relations may be asymmetrically coded, and further suggest that the location of selective attention may serve as the mechanism that guides this asymmetry.

Highlights

Throughout cognition, absolute values are less important than relative values
We find that people are faster to verify the relation when this cued object is the “target” within a verbal description, consistent with the idea that the attentional spotlight plays a role in creating a similar asymmetry in the perceptual representation
THE ATTENTIONAL “SPOTLIGHT”: A POTENTIAL MECHANISM FOR MARKING THE ASYMMETRY OF A RELATION We briefly describe a model of visual spatial relationship judgment where the designation of the target object within such a spatial relationship is guided by the location of the “spotlight” of

Summary

Introduction

Throughout cognition, absolute values are less important than relative values. At the highest levels of cognition, we make decisions about values (e.g., whether a particular gas station’s prices are “cheap”) based on other values serving as a baseline (even when those baseline values are irrelevant; Tversky and Kahneman, 1974). We explore an intermediate case – our perceptual system’s representation of the relative spatial positions of objects, e.g., “A is above B.”. Categorical denotes relations where exact metric information is less relevant than the abstracted relational prototypes that objects might fit, such as “left of,” or “above.” For example, a stapler can still be to the left of the keyboard, whether it is 2 or 2 feet away (Kosslyn, 1987; Chabris and Kosslyn, 1998). Ratings for how well a pair of objects match a given relational category are subject to their fit within a rough prototype of ideal spatial arrangements, e.g., within an ideal “above” relation, two objects are vertically but not horizontally offset (Hayward and Tarr, 1995; Logan and Sadler, 1996; Regier and Carlson, 2001; Carlson and Logan, 2005)

Methods

Results

Conclusion