Hemispheric lateralisation is a fundamental principle of functional brain organisation. We studied two core cognitive functions--language and visuospatial attention--that typically lateralise in opposite cerebral hemispheres. In this work, we tested both left- and right-handed participants on lexical decision-making as well as on symmetry…

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…

Previous research has investigated the Spatial Numerical Associations of Response Codes (SNARC) effect as a measure of spatial number coding in relation to mathematics (Cipora et al., 2020, https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14355). An issue that arises if one wants to correlate mathematical performance with the SNARC effect, is how individual…

This paper explores the spatial dimension of Fleming's Left Hand Rule (LHR), commonly-used in Physics instruction for determining the direction of force using the left hand's thumb, forefinger and middle finger. A new instrument was developed to gauge students' ability to coordinate their fingers in 3D space (egocentric frame of reference) based…

Conceptual metaphor is ubiquitous in language and thought, as we usually reason and talk about abstract concepts in terms of more concrete ones via metaphorical mappings that are hypothesized to arise from our embodied experience. One pervasive example is the conceptual projection of valence onto space, which flexibly recruits the vertical and…

Previous research has linked the concept of number and other ordinal series to space via a spatially oriented mental number line. In addition, it has been shown that in visual scene recognition and production, speakers of a language with a left-to-right orthography respond faster to and tend to draw images in which the agent of an action is…

Previous research suggests that block adding, subtracting and counting direction are early forms of number-space mapping. In this study, an embodiment perspective on these skills was taken. Embodiment theory assumes that cognition emerges through sensory-motor interaction with the environment. In line with this assumption, it was investigated if…

The body specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009) posits that the way in which people interact with the world affects their mental representation of information. For instance, right- versus left-handedness affects the mental representation of affective valence, with right-handers categorically associating good with rightward areas and bad with…

Research on bimanual coordination of hand movements has identified several loci of bimanual interference, including interference because of programming different movement parameters or selecting different targets for the two hands. This study investigates the extent and origin of interference when participants execute bimanual actions with tools.…

Background: Pseudoneglect is a normal left sided spatial bias observed with attempted bisections of horizontal lines and a normal upward bias observed with attempted bisections of vertical lines. Horizontal pseudoneglect has been attributed to right hemispheric dominance for the allocation of attention. The goal of this study was to test the…

We investigated 4- and 5-year-old children's mapping strategies in a spatial task. Children were required to find a picture in an array of three identical cups after observing another picture being hidden in another array of three cups. The arrays were either aligned one behind the other in two rows or placed side by side forming one line.…

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…

In patients with the callosal type of anarchic-hand syndrome, the left hand often does not act as intended and counteracts the right hand. Reports are scarce about the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms. We report the case G.H. who developed the syndrome after infarction of the left arteria pericallosa. It has been suggested that the…

Studies have suggested that supramodal attentional resources are biased rightward due to asymmetric spatial fields of the two hemispheres. This bias has been observed especially in right-handed subjects. We presented left and right-handed subjects with brief uniform grey visual stimuli in either the left or right visual hemifield. Consistent with…

Several studies have shown that handedness has an impact on visual spatial abilities. Here we investigated the effect of laterality on auditory space perception. Participants (33 right-handers, 20 left-handers) completed two tasks of sound localization. In a dark, anechoic, and sound-proof room, sound stimuli (broadband noise) were presented via…