The processing of time activates a spatial left-to-right mental timeline, where past events are "located" to the left and future events to the right. If past and future words activate this mental timeline, then the processing of such words should interfere with hand movements that go in the opposite direction. To test this hypothesis, we…

This study examined the changes in saccadic amplitude associated with learning a visual sequence. The oculomotor system gradually adjusts saccadic parameters when tracking a visual stimulus, which has a predictable trajectory. In these contexts, the change in saccadic amplitudes leads to predictive fixations. That is, fixations made to a position…

It has been demonstrated that the Simon effect may be increased or reversed due to proportion congruency manipulation, suggesting that learned spatial irrelevant stimulus-response (S-R) associations are used to guide responses. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that learning spatial irrelevant S-R associations by rewards may show a similar…

In embodied theories of semantic representation, the processes and mechanisms of modal simulations that are engaged during semantic processing have tended to be underspecified. We investigated the possibility that motor imagery may be a mechanism of simulation, using an individual differences approach. In this preregistered study, we assessed…

Prior behavioral experiments across a variety of tasks have typically shown that the go/no-go procedure produces not only shorter response times and/or fewer errors than the two-choice procedure, but also yields a higher sensitivity to experimental manipulations. To uncover the time course of information processing in the go/no-go versus the…

Creative objects differ from ordinary objects in that they are created by human beings to contain novel, creative information. Previous research has demonstrated that ordinary object processing involves both a perceptual process for analyzing different features of the visual input and a higher-order process for evaluating the relevance of this…

This study investigated the influence of phonological word representations from both first language (L1) and second language (L2) on third language (L3) lexical learning in L1-dominant Spanish-English bilinguals. More specifically, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to determine whether L1 Spanish and L2 English phonology modulates…

The goal of an action can consist of generating a change in the environment (to produce an effect) or changing one's own situation in the environment (to move to a physical target). To investigate whether the mechanisms of effect-directed and target-directed action control are similar, participants performed continuous reversal movements. They…

The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a practice effect on the Hand Laterality Judgement Task (HLJT). The HLJT task is a mental rotation task that can be used to assess motor imagery ability in stroke patients. Thirty-three healthy individuals performed the HLJT and two control tasks twice at a 3-week interval. Differences in the…

Primary somatosensory maps in the brain represent the body as a discontinuous, fragmented set of two-dimensional (2-D) skin regions. We nevertheless experience our body as a coherent three-dimensional (3-D) volumetric object. The links between these different aspects of body representation, however, remain poorly understood. Perceiving the body's…

We demonstrate that right-handed participants make speeded classification responses to pairs of objects that appear in standard co-locations for right-handed actions relative to when they appear in reflected locations. These effects are greater when participants "weight" information for action when deciding if 2 objects are typically…