The match in orientation between verbal context and object accelerates change detection

Abstract

Research in the field of embodied cognition has shown that sensorimotor simulation significantly influences various aspects of cognitive processing. This experiment was designed to test the impact of the sensorimotor simulation of objects’ physical proprieties, initiated by the preceding verbal context, on change detection performance. Before performing each of change detection trials, participants were exposed to sentences suggesting a particular object orientation (horizontal or vertical). The orientation in the first display of the objects that were to be replaced in the second was also manipulated. Response latencies results show that the sentences implying the same spatial orientation as that of the to-be-changed object led to a faster detection of its change compared to the sentences that implied the mismatching orientation, an effect that we explain in terms of the superior encoding, facilitated by sensorimotor simulation, of the objects with matching orientation.

Keywords

• change detection
• sensorimotor simulation
• object orientation
• change blindness