Cultural differences in drawing movements between right-handed Japanese and German participants

Response Priming with Horizontally and Vertically Moving Primes: A Comparison of German, Malaysian, and Japanese Subjects

Response priming refers to the finding that a prime preceding a target influences the response to the target. With German subjects, horizontally moving dots as primes, and static arrows as targets, there are typically faster responses to compatible (i.e., prime and target are associated with the same response) as compared to incompatible targets (i.e., positive compatibility effect, PCE) with short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). In contrast, with longer SOAs, subjects respond faster to incompatible as compared to compatible targets (i.e., negative compatibility effect, NCE). In the present study, we extended the evidence by adding vertically oriented materials. Furthermore, we tested subjects from Malaysia and Japan, where the vertical orientation is more present in daily life, and compared them to German subjects to investigate whether the amount of experience with one orientation influences the compatibility effects on this orientation. Overall, we found pronounced PCEs in the short SOA (i.e., 150 ms) but only reduced PCEs in the longer SOAs (i.e., 350, 550, and 750 ms) across all countries and orientations. There were no differences between the German and Malaysian samples, but the Japanese sample showed larger PCEs in the longer SOAs compared to both other samples. Furthermore, we found larger PCEs for horizontal than vertical materials in the short SOA and larger PCEs for vertical than horizontal materials in the longer SOAs. We discuss our findings in light of theories and findings on compatibility effects as well as attentional mechanisms.

Sources of Directional Spatial Biases in Hemi-Image Drawing

We examined the performance of right- and left-handed brain-intact adult readers of English or Farsi on a hemi-image generation task in which participants were to imagine and then draw halves of objects using either their dominant or nondominant hand. Which half of the object was drawn was examined in relation to biomechanical, cerebral laterality, and cultural predictors. Findings showed a differential side bias as a function of reading/writing direction and hand used to draw. Specifically, when the dominant hand was used to draw (Experiment 1), English left-handers produced more left hemi-images while Farsi right-handers produced more right hemi-images. Body specificity associated with hand used, however, drove spatial preference when enlisting the nondominant hand (Experiment 2) with English right-handers now showing a significant left hemi-image bias and English left-handers showing a right hemi-image bias. Farsi right-handers using their nondominant hand did not show a significant bias in either direction. Taken together, the findings suggest a joint influence of handedness and reading/writing direction, aligned with an embodiment account of directional spatial biases.

Contributions of the Left and the Right Hemispheres on Language-Induced Grip Force Modulation of the Left Hand in Unimanual Tasks

Background and Objectives: Language-induced grip force modulation (LGFM) can be used to better understand the link between language and motor functions as an expression of embodied language. However, the contribution of each brain hemisphere to LGFM is still unclear. Using six different action verbs as stimuli, this study evaluated the grip force modulation of the left hand in a unimanual task to characterize the left and right hemispheres' contributions. Materials and Methods: Left-hand LGFM of 20 healthy and consistently right-handed subjects was evaluated using the verbs "to write", "to hold", "to pull" (left-lateralized central processing actions), "to draw", "to tie", and "to drive" (bihemispheric central processing actions) as linguistic stimuli. The time between the word onset and the first interval of statistical significance regarding the baseline (here as reaction time, RT) was also measured. Results: The six verbs produced LGFM. The modulation intensity was similar for the six verbs, but the RT was variable. The verbs "to draw", "to tie", and "to drive", whose central processing of the described action is bihemispheric, showed a longer RT compared to the other verbs. Conclusions: The possibility of a given manual action being performed by the left hand in consistent right-handers does not interfere with the occurrence of LGFM when the descriptor verb of this action is used as a linguistic stimulus, even if the possibility is remote. Therefore, LGFM seems to mainly rely on the left hemisphere, while a greater activation of the right hemisphere in action processing appears to slow the increase in LGFM intensity.

Using Finger Dexterity in Elderly and Younger People to Detect Cognitive Decline

Because the number of elderly people is rapidly growing, using information and communication technology (ICT) for services to watch single-elder-person households has been attracting attention. Most of these services are aimed at detecting elders’ abnormalities. They could become more effective, from the preventive-medicine point of view, if additional functions were added to watch for any decline in the elders’ cognitive functions. In this paper, we describe a method for detecting minor declines in elders’ cognitive functions, which they may not be aware of, by measuring and analyzing their spiral-tracing ability using a tablet device. We developed such a measurement/analysis system and applied it to three groups of test participants: young, non-frail elders, and frail elders. This paper first describes the method for analyzing the numbers of out-of-orbit tracing attempts, the numbers of uncompleted attempts, the required time, and the angular velocities, and then refers to these tasks to reveal the elders’ characteristics from the analytic results.

How Culture, Age, and Manual Dominance Affect Directionality in Drawing Side View Objects

The aim of the present experiment was to investigate the extent to which the orientation of objects drawn in side view is a function of culture, age, and manual dominance. Right-handed French and Syrian children aged between 6 and 10 years and right-handed adults from the same cultural groups were asked to produce side views of faces, vehicles (car and airplane), self-centered tools with a handle (mug and toothbrush), object-centered tools with a handle (jug and hammer), and animals (dog and fish) using their dominant and nondominant hands. The French participants exhibited a leftward directional bias, whereas their Syrian counterparts displayed a rightward bias. However, no differences between the two cultural groups were observed in the 6-year-olds, who did not present any systematic directional bias in their drawings. Furthermore, regardless of culture, the children did not modify the orientation of the objects in their drawings as a function of the hand used, whereas the hand effect was strong in adults. Finally, despite their directional bias toward the right, the Syrian participants tended to draw the self- and object-centered tools facing leftward. These results are discussed with reference to the current literature on this topic.