Skip to main content
Article
Attention to Body-Parts Varies With Visual Preference and Verb–Effector Associations
Cognitive Processing
  • Ty W. Boyer, Georgia Southern University
  • Josita Maouene, Grand Valley State University
  • Nitya Sethuraman, University of Michigan-Dearborn
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2017
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-017-0792-y
Abstract

Theories of embodied conceptual meaning suggest fundamental relations between others’ actions, language, and our own actions and visual attention processes. Prior studies have found that when people view an image of a neutral body in a scene they first look toward, in order, the head, torso, hands, and legs. Other studies show associations between action verbs and the body-effectors used in performing the action (e.g., “jump” with feet/legs; “talk” with face/head). In the present experiment, the visual attention of participants was recorded with a remote eye-tracking system while they viewed an image of an actor pantomiming an action and heard a concrete action verb. Participants manually responded whether or not the action image was a good example of the verb they heard. The eye-tracking results confirmed that participants looked at the head most, followed by the hands, and the feet least of all; however, visual attention to each of the body-parts also varied as a function of the effector associated with the spoken verb on image/verb congruent trials, particularly for verbs associated with the legs. Overall, these results suggest that language influences some perceptual processes; however, hearing auditory verbs did not alter the previously reported fundamental hierarchical sequence of directed attention, and fixations on specific body-effectors may not be essential for verb comprehension as peripheral visual cues may be sufficient to perform the task.

Copyright

Copyright belongs to Springer. Information regarding the dissemination and usage of journal articles can be accessed through the following link.

Citation Information
Ty W. Boyer, Josita Maouene and Nitya Sethuraman. "Attention to Body-Parts Varies With Visual Preference and Verb–Effector Associations" Cognitive Processing Vol. 18 Iss. 2 (2017) p. 195 - 203 ISSN: 1612-4790
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/maouenej/38/