Implied Spatial Meaning and Visuospatial Bias: Conceptual Processing Influences Processing of Visual Targets and Distractors
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Concepts with implicit spatial meaning (e.g., "hat", "boots") can bias visual attention in space. This result is typically found in experiments with a single visual target per trial, which can appear at one of two locations (e.g., above vs. below). Furthermore, the interaction is typically found in the form of speeded responses to targets appearing at the compatible location (e.g., faster responses to a target above fixation, after reading "hat"). It has been argued that these concept-space interactions could also result from experimentally-induced associations between the binary set of locations and the conceptual categories with upward and downward meaning. Thus, rather than reflecting a conceptually driven spatial bias, the effect could reflect a benefit for compatible cue-target sequences that occurs only after target onset. We addressed these concerns by going beyond a binary set of locations and employing a search display consisting of four items (above, below, left, and right). Within each search trial, before performing a visual search task, participants performed a conceptual task involving concepts with implicit upward or downward meaning. The search display, in addition to including a target, could also include a salient distractor. Assuming a conceptually driven visual bias, we expected to observe, first, a benefit for target processing at the compatible location and, second, an increase in the cost of the salient distractor. The findings confirmed both predictions, suggesting that concepts do indeed generate a spatial bias. Finally, results from a control experiment, without the conceptual task, suggest the presence of an axis-specific effect, in addition to the location-specific effect, suggesting that concepts might cause both location-specific and axis-specific spatial bias. Taken together, our findings provide additional support for the involvement of spatial processing in conceptual understanding.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".