Directional collisions during a route-following task

Crashing Left vs. Right: Examining Navigation Asymmetries Using the SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study Data

The magnitude of leftward bias demonstrated in pseudoneglect has been found to differ between younger and older adults in laboratory settings. The objective of this study was to examine the association between age and asymmetries in navigation in a naturalistic setting by examining the frequency of the location of impact on participants' vehicles during crashes and near crashes. The location of impact following crashes and near crashes, and participant's age and gender were retrieved from the SHRP2 NDS database, a large scale naturalistic driving study. Over the course of the study, data were collected from 3,546 participants driving in the United States of America (right-side traffic directionality), which included 1,465 crashes and 2,722 near crashes. During crashes and near crashes, irrespective of age, the location impact was most often on the front side of the participant vehicle. In contrast with results from laboratory environments, age was not associated with the location of impact during crashes and near crashes, and overall, crashes were over-represented on the left side of the vehicle compared to the right. Specifically, crashes were 1.41 times as likely to occur on the left compared to the right side of participants' vehicles. Overall, these findings inform future research that attempts to apply laboratory research, regarding asymmetry in navigation, to naturalistic settings.

An investigation of left/right driving rules on deviations while walking

When traversing through an aperture, such as a doorway, people characteristically deviate towards the right. This rightward deviation can be explained by a rightward attentional bias which leads to rightward bisections in far space. It is also possible, however, that left or right driving practices affect the deviation. To explore this possibility, Australian (left-side drivers) and Swiss (right-side drivers) participants (n = 36 & 34) walked through the middle of an aperture. To control for the sway of the body, participants started with either their left or right foot. Sway had a significant effect on participants' position in the doorway and the amount of sway was greater for Australians-perhaps due to national differences in gait. There was a significant rightward deviation for the Swiss, but not for the Australians. It is suggested that driving practices have a small additive effect on rightward attentional biases whereby the bias is increased for people who drive on the right and reduced in people who drive on the left.

Competitive action video game players display rightward error bias during on-line video game play

Research in asymmetrical visuospatial attention has identified a leftward bias in the general population across a variety of measures including visual attention and line-bisection tasks. In addition, increases in rightward collisions, or bumping, during visuospatial navigation tasks have been demonstrated in real world and virtual environments. However, little research has investigated these biases beyond the laboratory. The present study uses a semi-naturalistic approach and the online video game streaming service Twitch to examine navigational errors and assaults as skilled action video game players (n = 60) compete in Counter Strike: Global Offensive. This study showed a significant rightward bias in both fatal assaults and navigational errors. Analysis using the in-game ranking system as a measure of skill failed to show a relationship between bias and skill. These results suggest that a leftward visuospatial bias may exist in skilled players during online video game play. However, the present study was unable to account for some factors such as environmental symmetry and player handedness. In conclusion, video game streaming is a promising method for behavioural research in the future, however further study is required before one can determine whether these results are an artefact of the method applied, or representative of a genuine rightward bias.

The relationship between spatial cognition and walking trajectory for passing through a doorway: evident in individuals with dominant right eye?

When individuals attempt to walk through the center of a doorway (i.e., spatial bisection), the body's midpoint at crossing can deviate from its true center. Such deviation could result from asymmetry in spatial cognition. However, previous studies failed to find a significant correlation between bisection performance during walking and that during line/spatial bisection. We investigated whether such failure would result from different effectors being used for bisection (i.e., body midpoint or finger/laser pointer). We also investigated whether the difference in an individual's eye dominance would affect the relationship. Thirty-two young adults (16 of them with right-eye dominance) participated. For a walking task, participants walked through the perceived center of a wide doorway. For a spatial bisection task, they observed the same doorway under two distance conditions (about 0.5 and 2 m) and aligned their body midpoint with the perceived center in the sagittal dimension. Both tasks were performed under three visual occlusion conditions (dominant eye, non-dominant eye, and no occlusion). The results showed that, for the spatial bisection task, occluding the dominant eye caused deviation of the bisected point to the contralateral side. However, for the walking task, such an effect was observed only in participants with a dominant right eye. Consequently, directional biases in both tasks were significantly correlated only for right-eye-dominant participants. These results suggest that, for right-eye-dominant individuals only, use of the same effector for both tasks showed a clear relationship between the two tasks. Possible explanations for these findings were discussed.

In (or outside of) your neck of the woods: laterality in spatial body representation

Beside language, space is to date the most widely recognized lateralized systems. For example, it has been shown that even mental representations of space and the spatial representation of abstract concepts display lateralized characteristics. For the most part, this body of literature describes space as distal or something outside of the observer or actor. What has been strangely absent in the literature on the whole and specifically in the spatial literature until recently is the most proximal space imaginable – the body. In this review, we will summarize three strands of literature showing laterality in body representations. First, evidence of hemispheric asymmetries in body space in health and, second in body space in disease will be examined. Third, studies pointing to differential contributions of the right and left hemisphere to illusory body (space) will be summarized. Together these studies show hemispheric asymmetries to be evident in body representations at the level of simple somatosensory and proprioceptive representations. We propose a novel working hypothesis, whereby neural systems dedicated to processing action-oriented information about one’s own body space may ontogenetically serve as a template for the perception of the external world.

Leftward lighting in advertisements increases advertisement ratings and purchase intention

It has been reliably shown that light is assumed to come from above. There is also some suggestion that light from the left might be preferred. Leftward lighting biases have been observed across various mediums such as paintings, portraits, photographs, and advertisements. As advertisements are used to persuade the public to purchase products, it was of interest to better understand whether leftward lighting would influence future intention to purchase. Participants gave preference ratings for pairs of advertisements with opposing lighting directions. Attitude towards the advertisement and the brand as well as future purchase intention was then rated. Overall, participants indicated that they preferred advertisements with leftward lighting and were more likely to purchase these products in the future than when the same products were lit from the right. Findings are consistent with previously observed leftward lighting biases and suggest that advertisements with a leftward lighting bias might be more effective.