The effects of reading-writing direction on the asymmetry of space perception and directional tendencies: A comparison between French and Tunisian children

Writing letters in two graphic systems: Behavioral and neural correlates in Latin-Arabic biscripters

Biscriptuality is the ability to read and write using two scripts. Despite the increasing number of biscripters, this phenomenon remains poorly understood. Here, we focused on investigating graphomotor processing in French-Arabic biscripters. We chose the French and Arabic alphabets because they have comparable visuospatial complexity and linguistic features, but differ dramatically in their graphomotor characteristics. In a first experiment we describe the graphomotor features of the two alphabets and showed that while Arabic and Latin letters are produced with the same velocity and fluency, Arabic letters require more pen lifts, contain more right-to-left strokes and clockwise curves, and take longer to write than Latin letters. These results suggest that Arabic and Latin letters are produced via different motor patterns. In a second experiment we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to ask whether writing the two scripts relies upon partially distinct or fully overlapping neural networks, and whether the elements of the previously described handwriting network are recruited to the same extent by the two scripts. We found that both scripts engaged the so-called "writing network", but that within the network, Arabic letters recruited the left superior parietal lobule (SPL) and the left primary motor cortex (M1) more strongly than Latin letters. Both regions have previously been identified as holding scale-invariant representations of letter trajectories. Arabic and Latin letters also activated distinct regions that do not belong to the writing network. Complementary analyses indicate that the differences observed between scripts at the neural level could be driven by the specific graphomotor features of each script. Overall, our results indicate that particular features of the practiced scripts can lead to different motor organization at both the behavioral and brain levels in biscripters.

Impact of aging on perceptual asymmetries for horizontal and vertical stimuli in the greyscales task

Through the paper version of the grayscale task, this study examines the impact of aging and gender on horizontal and vertical pseudoneglect in healthy right-handed Japanese people. Participants included 168 (84 women and 84 men) healthy right-handed participants between the ages of 18 and 85, which were divided into three age cohorts (i.e., young, middle, and older). When administering the task, in the horizontal condition, the stimulus set of the grayscale task waspositioned at the center of the desk. In the vertical condition, the stimulus set was placed at the participants' eye level on the front screen. A reliable left bias was observed across all age groups in the horizontal task, although individual differences in the young group were significant. Moreover, gender differences and age-gender interactions were not confirmed. Similarly, in the vertical task, an upward bias was identified in both women and men across all age groups. Furthermore, there was a weak correlation between the horizontal and vertical bias index. These results were inconsistent with those of a previous study and other research using manual line bisection and landmark tasks. Further, we comprehensively deliberated on the cognitive/neural basis of horizontal and vertical pseudoneglect.

A meta-analysis of the line bisection task in children

Meta-analyses have shown subtle, group-level asymmetries of spatial attention in adults favouring the left hemispace (pseudoneglect). However, no meta-analysis has synthesized data on children. We performed a random-effects meta-analysis of spatial biases in children aged ≤16 years. Databases (PsycINFO, Web of Science & Scopus) and pre-print servers (bioRxiv, medRxiv & PsyArXiv) were searched for studies involving typically developing children with a mean age of ≤16, who were tested using line bisection. Thirty-three datasets, from 31 studies, involving 2101 children, were included. No bias was identified overall, but there was a small leftward bias in a subgroup where all children were aged ≤16. Moderator analysis found symmetrical neglect, with right-handed actions resulting in right-biased bisections, and left-handed actions in left-biased bisections. Bisections were more leftward in studies with a higher percentage of boys relative to girls. Mean age, hand preference, and control group status did not moderate biases, and there was no difference between children aged ≤7 and ≥7 years, although the number of studies in each moderator analysis was small. There was no evidence of small study bias. We conclude that pseudoneglect may be present in children but is dependent on individual characteristics (sex) and/or task demands (hand used).Registration: Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/n68fz/).

Abstract concepts: external influences, internal constraints, and methodological issues

There is a longstanding and widely held misconception about the relative remoteness of abstract concepts from concrete experiences. This review examines the current evidence for external influences and internal constraints on the processing, representation, and use of abstract concepts, like truth, friendship, and number. We highlight the theoretical benefit of distinguishing between grounded and embodied cognition and then ask which roles do perception, action, language, and social interaction play in acquiring, representing and using abstract concepts. By reviewing several studies, we show that they are, against the accepted definition, not detached from perception and action. Focussing on magnitude-related concepts, we also discuss evidence for cultural influences on abstract knowledge and explore how internal processes such as inner speech, metacognition, and inner bodily signals (interoception) influence the acquisition and retrieval of abstract knowledge. Finally, we discuss some methodological developments. Specifically, we focus on the importance of studies that investigate the time course of conceptual processing and we argue that, because of the paramount role of sociality for abstract concepts, new methods are necessary to study concepts in interactive situations. We conclude that bodily, linguistic, and social constraints provide important theoretical limitations for our theories of conceptual knowledge.

Visualization in Motion: A Research Agenda and Two Evaluations

We contribute a research agenda for visualization in motion and two experiments to understand how well viewers can read data from moving visualizations. We define visualizations in motion as visual data representations that are used in contexts that exhibit relative motion between a viewer and an entire visualization. Sports analytics, video games, wearable devices, or data physicalizations are example contexts that involve different types of relative motion between a viewer and a visualization. To analyze the opportunities and challenges for designing visualization in motion, we show example scenarios and outline a first research agenda. Motivated primarily by the prevalence of and opportunities for visualizations in sports and video games we started to investigate a small aspect of our research agenda: the impact of two important characteristics of motion-speed and trajectory on a stationary viewer's ability to read data from moving donut and bar charts. We found that increasing speed and trajectory complexity did negatively affect the accuracy of reading values from the charts and that bar charts were more negatively impacted. In practice, however, this impact was small: both charts were still read fairly accurately.

Cross-cultural differences in visuo-spatial processing and the culture-fairness of visuo-spatial intelligence tests: an integrative review and a model for matrices tasks

Visuo-spatial reasoning tests, such as Raven's matrices, Cattell's culture-fair test, or various subtests of the Wechsler scales, are frequently used to estimate intelligence scores in the context of inter-racial comparisons. This has led to several high-profile works claiming that certain ethnic groups have lower intelligence than others, presumably due to genetic inferiority. This logic is predicated on the assumption that such visuo-spatial tests, because they are non-verbal, must be culture-fair: that their solution process does not significantly draw on factors that vary from one culture to the next. This assumption of culture-fairness is dubious at best and has been questioned by many authors. In this article, I review the substantial body of psychological and ethnographic literature which has demonstrated that the perception, manipulation and conceptualization of visuo-spatial information differs significantly across cultures, in a way that is relevant to intelligence tests. I then outline a model of how these inter-cultural differences can affect seven major steps of the solution process for Raven's matrices, with a brief discussion of other visuo-spatial reasoning tests. Overall, a number of cultural assumptions appear to be deeply ingrained in all visuo-spatial reasoning tests, to the extent that it disqualifies the view of such tests as intrinsically culture-fair and makes it impossible to draw clear-cut conclusions from average score differences between ethnic groups.

Cultural factors weaken but do not reverse left-to-right spatial biases in numerosity processing: Data from Arabic and English monoliterates and Arabic-English biliterates

Directional response biases due to a conceptual link between space and number, such as a left-to-right hand bias for increasing numerical magnitude, are known as the SNARC (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes) effect. We investigated how the SNARC effect for numerosities would be influenced by reading-writing direction, task instructions, and ambient visual environment in four literate populations exemplifying opposite reading-writing cultures-namely, Arabic (right-to-left script) and English (left-to-right script). Monoliterates and biliterates in Jordan and the U.S. completed a speeded numerosity comparison task to assess the directionality and magnitude of a SNARC effect in their numerosity processing. Monoliterates' results replicated previously documented effects of reading-writing direction and task instructions: the SNARC effect found in left-to-right readers was weakened in right-to-left readers, and the left-to-right group exhibited a task-dependency effect (SNARC effect in the smaller condition, reverse SNARC effect in the larger condition). Biliterates' results did not show a clear effect of environment; instead, both biliterate groups resembled English monoliterates in showing a left-to-right, task-dependent SNARC effect, albeit weaker than English monoliterates'. The absence of significant biases in all Arabic-reading groups (biliterates and Arabic monoliterates) points to a potential conflict between distinct spatial-numerical mapping codes. This view is explained in terms of the proposed Multiple Competing Codes Theory (MCCT), which posits three distinct spatial-numerical mapping codes (innate, cardinal, ordinal) during numerical processing-each involved at varying levels depending on individual and task factors.

Effect of Culturally Mediated Right-Favoritism on the Direction of Pseudoneglect on Line Bisection Tasks

Objectives: Arabs have a right-to-left language and engage in favoring of the right side or limb when implementing daily routine practices. The purpose of this research is to explore the effect this cultural attitude might have on pseudoneglect, by comparing with a southeast Asian sample that has a left-to-right language structure. Methods: Participants were from two separate ethnic groups (Arabs and Filipinos), residing in Saudi Arabia, healthy individals 18 years and above were allowed to volunteer in the study. The participants were recruited at King Saud University Medical City and the general community by both convenience and snowball sampling. Social demographic information such as gender, age, years of education, dominant hand, was also documented. The line bisection task (LBT) contained 36 randomly assorted lines of three different lengths placed at five different locations on a white sheet. The percent deviation score (PDS) was used to quantify pseudo-neglect. Tests of statistical significance including t-tests and mixed-effects regression were performed to determine if differences existed among different demographic variables or among line properties, respectively. Results: A total of 256 were enrolled (Arabs 52.3%). The overall PDS mean and standard deviation (SD) was -0.64 (2.87), p = 0.0004, which shows a significant leftward deviation in the entire cohort. PDS was -1.26 (2.68) in Filipinos, and -0.08 (2.94) in Arabs. The difference was statically significant (p < 0.0001). Mixed effects model showed positive changes in the PDS value as the length of the line increased (p < 0.0001) and as the line was more rightward placed (p < 0.0001). However, Filipino participants would still exhibit negative changes in the PDS value in comparison to Arabs (p < 0.0001); There were no significant associations between PDS and other factors such as age, years of education and gender. Conclusion: Differences found here between two distinct ethnic groups support the hypothesis that certain cultural aspects such as language direction and other cultural practices influence direction and degree of pseudo-neglect.

Right up- left down

BACKGROUND

When performing the clock-drawing test healthy participants often draw the clock face using a counter clockwise movement. The reason for this circular directional bias is not known. These actions may be related to the development of motor or attentional programs that associate leftward with downward movements, and rightward with upward movements.

METHODS

To further examine this down-left, up-right programming hypothesis, we examined the direction of circular movements made during cursive writing by dividing the first curved movements into the following pairs, up versus down, and leftward versus rightward.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

With almost all the letters analyzed, when initially moving upward there was a simultaneous rightward movement and when initially moving downward a leftward movement. The results suggest that there appears to be a relationship between downward and leftward movements as well as between upward and right rightward movements. In addition, there is some evidence to suggest that the right-upward movements may be mediated by the left hemisphere and left-downward movements by the right hemisphere. Although our results suggest motor or spatial attentional programs may account for counter clockwise face drawing, activities such as learned writing direction may influence this spatial bias. Therefore, additional research is needed to better understand if these spatial biases are learned or intrinsic and the neuropsychological mechanisms that might account for these asymmetries.

Laterality and visuospatial strategies among young children: A novel 3D-2D transcription task

Recent findings showed that children, like adults, exhibit directional biases leading to asymmetrical drawings. This appears to be the result of a complex interaction between several biological, motoric, and cultural factors. We created a drawing task designed to investigate the influence of laterality (i.e., hemispherical functional specialization and handedness) and sex on children's graphical asymmetries. This task consists of transcribing a symmetrical three-dimensional landscape model to a two-dimensional representation. Sixty-six French pre-school children, aged between 5 and 6 years, were asked to undertake the 3D-2D transcription task, as well as the classical Alter's directionality task. The novel task exhibited higher sensitivity than the Alter's directionality test when examining the spatial biases resulting from handedness, and sex. Specific drawing patterns related to these variables were identified. These results suggest that, in addition to the influence of biomechanical factors and handedness, sex plays a role in children's early graphomotor development. They also support the influence of laterality as a key factor underlying early directional biases.

Response Priming with Horizontally and Vertically Moving Primes: A Comparison of German, Malaysian, and Japanese Subjects

Response priming refers to the finding that a prime preceding a target influences the response to the target. With German subjects, horizontally moving dots as primes, and static arrows as targets, there are typically faster responses to compatible (i.e., prime and target are associated with the same response) as compared to incompatible targets (i.e., positive compatibility effect, PCE) with short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). In contrast, with longer SOAs, subjects respond faster to incompatible as compared to compatible targets (i.e., negative compatibility effect, NCE). In the present study, we extended the evidence by adding vertically oriented materials. Furthermore, we tested subjects from Malaysia and Japan, where the vertical orientation is more present in daily life, and compared them to German subjects to investigate whether the amount of experience with one orientation influences the compatibility effects on this orientation. Overall, we found pronounced PCEs in the short SOA (i.e., 150 ms) but only reduced PCEs in the longer SOAs (i.e., 350, 550, and 750 ms) across all countries and orientations. There were no differences between the German and Malaysian samples, but the Japanese sample showed larger PCEs in the longer SOAs compared to both other samples. Furthermore, we found larger PCEs for horizontal than vertical materials in the short SOA and larger PCEs for vertical than horizontal materials in the longer SOAs. We discuss our findings in light of theories and findings on compatibility effects as well as attentional mechanisms.

The effects of hemispheric dominance, literacy acquisition, and handedness on the development of visuospatial attention: A study in preschoolers and second graders

A tendency to over-attend the left side of the space (i.e., pseudoneglect) has been repeatedly reported in Western adult populations and is supposed to reflect a right hemisphere dominance in the control of visuospatial attention. This neurobiological hypothesis has been partially challenged by growing evidence showing that pseudoneglect is profoundly triggered by cultural practices such as reading and writing habits. Accordingly, more recent theoretical accounts suggest a strict coupling between nature and nurture dimensions at the origins of such bias. To further explore this possibility, here we first administered a digitized cancellation task to right-handed Western children before and after literacy acquisition. Results showed an incremental leftward shift of attention in the cancellation of the first target and an increasing preference for a left-to-right visual search from preschoolers to second graders. Yet, despite these differences, the overall distribution of visuospatial attention was biased to the left in both groups. To explore the role of handedness in visuospatial asymmetries, we also tested a group of left-handed second graders. Results showed an impact of handedness on visuospatial performance, with an accentuated rightward-oriented visual search for left-handed children, although the overall distribution of attention was again biased to the left hemispace. Taken together, these findings do not provide support to a pure neurobiological view of visuospatial biases. Rather, our study indicates that the control of visuospatial attention is mediated by a dynamic interplay among biological (i.e., right hemisphere dominance), biomechanical (i.e., hand dominance), and cultural (i.e., reading habits) factors.

Sources of Directional Spatial Biases in Hemi-Image Drawing

We examined the performance of right- and left-handed brain-intact adult readers of English or Farsi on a hemi-image generation task in which participants were to imagine and then draw halves of objects using either their dominant or nondominant hand. Which half of the object was drawn was examined in relation to biomechanical, cerebral laterality, and cultural predictors. Findings showed a differential side bias as a function of reading/writing direction and hand used to draw. Specifically, when the dominant hand was used to draw (Experiment 1), English left-handers produced more left hemi-images while Farsi right-handers produced more right hemi-images. Body specificity associated with hand used, however, drove spatial preference when enlisting the nondominant hand (Experiment 2) with English right-handers now showing a significant left hemi-image bias and English left-handers showing a right hemi-image bias. Farsi right-handers using their nondominant hand did not show a significant bias in either direction. Taken together, the findings suggest a joint influence of handedness and reading/writing direction, aligned with an embodiment account of directional spatial biases.

The depth and breadth of multiple perceptual asymmetries in right handers and non-right handers

Several non-verbal perceptual and attentional processes have been linked with specialization of the right cerebral hemisphere. Given that most people have a left hemispheric specialization for language, it is tempting to assume that functions of these two classes of dominance are related. Unfortunately, such models of complementarity are notoriously hard to test. Here we suggest a method which compares frequency of a particular perceptual asymmetry with known frequencies of left hemispheric language dominance in right-handed and non-right handed groups. We illustrate this idea using the greyscales and colourscales tasks, chimeric faces, emotional dichotic listening, and a consonant-vowel dichotic listening task. Results show a substantial "breadth" of leftward bias on the right hemispheric tasks and rightward bias on verbal dichotic listening. Right handers and non-right handers did not differ in terms of proportions of people who were left biased for greyscales/colourscales. Support for reduced typical biases in non-right handers was found for chimeric faces and for CV dichotic listening. Results are discussed in terms of complementary theories of cerebral asymmetries, and how this type of method could be used to create a taxonomy of lateralized functions, each categorized as related to speech and language dominance, or not.

The multifaceted abstract brain

concepts play a central role in human behaviour and constitute a critical component of the human conceptual system. Here, we investigate the neural basis of four types of abstract concepts, examining their similarities and differences through neuroimaging meta-analyses. We examine numerical and emotional concepts, and two higher-order abstract processes, morality judgements and theory of mind. Three main findings emerge. First, representation of abstract concepts is more widespread than is often assumed. Second, representations of different types of abstract concepts differ in important respects. Each of the domains examined here was associated with some unique areas. Third, some areas were commonly activated across domains and included inferior parietal, posterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex. We interpret these regions in terms of their role in episodic recall, event representation and social-emotional processing. We suggest that different types of abstract concepts can be represented and grounded through differing contributions from event-based, interoceptive, introspective and sensory-motor representations. The results underscore the richness and diversity of abstract concepts, argue against single-mechanism accounts for representation of all types of abstract concepts and suggest mechanisms for their direct and indirect grounding.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

Lateral biases in aesthetic and spatial location judgments: differences between tasks and native reading directions

People exhibit consistent leftward spatial biases across a variety of tasks. However, individuals with a native reading direction other than left-to-right (LTR) show an attenuation of the leftward bias. The current study used procedurally similar tasks to examine spatial ability and aesthetic preferences in LTR and right-to-left (RTL) groups. In the spatial task participants viewed a centred rectangle partially occluded by an overlapping circle and estimated the centre of the circle with a single mouse click. In the aesthetic task participants used the mouse to control a "virtual flashlight" to light images of abstract paintings in the most aesthetically pleasing way. Contrary to predictions, smaller errors were made for circles on the right and estimations were progressively less accurate as circle size increased in the spatial task. On the aesthetic task, light placements of LTR participants were biased to the left and significantly different from the slightly rightward placements of RTL participants. As predicted, when completing the aesthetics task amounts of time scanning left or right visual space were different between groups. Findings support the theory that directional scanning biases attenuate leftward lateral biases and further, the nature of the visuospatial task may vary the strength of lateral bias.

The perception of text triggers reflexive oculomotor orienting

As you read this text, your brain is busy integrating numerous different processes-perceptual, cognitive and motor. While you acquire the semantic and linguistic contents of this abstract, your eyes traverse its lines with speed and coordination. The oculomotor response to text is so rapid and precise that it is hypothesized it to be partially based on reflexive orienting mechanisms. In this study we examined the hypothesis that the presentation of written text triggers reflexive orienting toward the direction of reading, similarly to the effect of peripheral stimulation or that of symbolic directional cues (arrows or gazing eyes). In three experiments, participants (N = 120) were presented with task-irrelevant text, shortly followed by a left/right pro-saccade task. The first experiment confirmed the hypothesis by showing that saccades which are congruent with the direction of reading are faster than those which are incongruent. This was observed both in right-to-left (Hebrew) and in left-to-right (English) reading-systems and similarly in native-Hebrew and native-English readers. A second experiment showed that this directional bias is found not only for readable text but also for meaningless strings of letters. This confirmed that the bias is driven pre-reading non-lexical processes. The third experiment examined the time-course of this effect. We conclude that text-perception actives early reflexive eye-movements programs and suggest that this link is an essential building-block of fast and effortless reading.

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.

Is Beauty in the Hand of the Writer? Influences of Aesthetic Preferences through Script Directions, Cultural, and Neurological Factors: A Literature Review

Human experience surrounding the appreciation of beauty is not static. Many factors such as script direction and cultural differences directly impact whether, how and why we consider images beautiful. In an earlier study, Pérez González showed that 19th-century Iranian and Spanish professional photographers manifest lateral biases linked to reading writing direction in their compositions. The present paper aims to provide a general review on this topic and intends to highlight the most relevant studies reporting preferences in the appreciation of beauty in individuals with different reading and writing directions and belonging to different cultural backgrounds.

How does reading direction modulate perceptual asymmetry effects?

Left-side bias effects refer to a bias towards the left side of the stimulus/space in perceptual/visuospatial judgments, and are argued to reflect dominance of right hemisphere processing. It remains unclear whether reading direction can also account for the bias effect. Previous studies comparing readers of languages read from left to right with those read from right to left (e.g., French vs. Hebrew) have obtained inconsistent results. As a language that can be read from left to right or from right to left, Chinese provides a unique opportunity for a within-culture examination of reading direction effects. Chinese participants performed a perceptual judgment task (with both face and Chinese character stimuli; Experiment 1) and two visuospatial attention tasks (the greyscales and line bisection tasks; Experiment 2) once before and once after a reading task, in which they read Chinese passages either from left to right or from right to left for about 20 min. After reading from right to left, participants showed significantly reduced left-side bias in Chinese character perceptual judgments but not in the other three tasks. This effect suggests that the role of reading direction on different forms of left-side bias may differ, and its modulation may be stimulus-specific.

Reading direction causes spatial biases in mental model construction in language understanding

Correlational evidence suggests that the experience of reading and writing in a certain direction is able to induce spatial biases at both low-level perceptuo-motor skills and high-level conceptual representations. However, in order to support a causal relationship, experimental evidence is required. In this study, we asked whether the direction of the script is a sufficiente cause of spatial biases in the mental models that understanders build when listening to language. In order to establish causality, we manipulated the experience of reading a script with different directionalities. Spanish monolinguals read either normal (left-to-right), mirror reversed (right-to-left), rotated downward (up-down), or rotated upward (down-up) texts, and then drew the contents of auditory descriptions such as "the square is between the cross and the triangle". The directionality of the drawings showed that a brief reading experience is enough to cause congruent and very specific spatial biases in mental model construction. However, there were also clear limits to this flexibility: there was a strong overall preference to arrange the models along the horizontal dimension. Spatial preferences when building mental models from language are the results of both short-term and long-term biases.

Word and line bisection in typical and impaired readers and a cross-language comparison

Observers exhibit larger leftward bias when bisecting words compared with lines. According to the Attentional Scaling Hypothesis, attempting to access lexical entries involves focusing attention on the initial letters of words to establish a cohort of potential matches with entries in the mental lexicon. We test this account by examining two predictions: (1) greater leftward bias for words should be evident in English readers in which the word beginning is on the left but not in Hebrew readers. (2) Dyslexics who have lexical impairments should show greater bias. Results reveal that word length modulated bisection bias differently for Hebrew and English readers, although the bias stays always leftward. Furthermore, dyslexics exhibited an exaggerated leftward bias than controls. We propose this effect arises from an interaction between reading and spatial attention rather than from the scaling of attention relative to the beginning of the word in the service of lexical access.

The Potential Impact of Directionality, Colour Perceptions and Cultural Associations on Disaster Messages During Heatwaves in the UK

The health risks posed by heatwaves have been well documented. In the UK, before and during a heatwave, alerts are issued to the general public based on a tiered warning system integrating the use of colour and number sequences. There has of yet been no formal assessment of the public response to these messages. Cultural and language barriers make some members of ethnic minority communities particularly hard to reach. These may be less challenging amongst younger community members, who may be well placed to instigate the circulation of warning information to those less able or willing to use conventional channels. This qualitative study assesses the role of age and ethnic and cultural background in the conceptualisation of the number and colour systems used as part of the Heat-Health Watch System (HHWS) and the National Severe Weather Warning Service (NSWWS). Young and older participants were recruited from the Bangladeshi and white British populations of Tower Hamlets. All participants were given a cognitive task that required them to identify and draw associations between 12 cards depicting the four colours and numbers used in the warning system and four pictures providing contextualisation in terms of heatwave risk. A qualitative analysis of the heuristics used in the group discussions provided insights into the conceptualisations basic to interpreting colour and number sequences as representations of risk graduations, and how interpretation might be influenced by age and ethnic and cultural background. There were considerable differences in the interpretation of young Bangladeshi and older white British participants, on the one hand, and older Bangladeshi participants, on the other. Young Bangladeshis and older white British participants conceptualised the colours and numbers as a vertical scale, with the numbers/colours at “the top” corresponding to representations of higher temperature. This conceptualisation was mainly based on strong associations between colour and temperature, with risk only associated with the upper limit of the scale. Older Bangladeshi participants, on the other hand, conceptualised the numbers and pictures as a narrative sequence and disassociated the colours from the other cards. The differences between groups suggest potential cultural barriers to the “intended” interpretation of the colour and number sequences for older Bangladeshis but not for young Bangladeshis. The fact that the predominant association for the colour sequence for both young Bangladeshis and older white British participants was with graduations of temperature rather than risk raises questions about the applicability of using colours in a tiered warning system.

How space-number associations may be created in preliterate children: six distinct mechanisms

The directionality of space-number association (SNA) is shaped by cultural experiences. It usually follows the culturally dominant reading direction. Smaller numbers are generally associated with the starting side for reading (left side in Western cultures), while larger numbers are associated with the right endpoint side. However, SNAs consistent with cultural reading directions are present before children can actually read and write. Therefore, these SNAs cannot only be shaped by the direction of children’s own reading/writing behavior. We propose six distinct processes – one biological and five cultural/educational – underlying directional SNAs before formal reading acquisition: (i) Brain lateralization, (ii) Monitoring adult reading behavior, (iii) Pretend reading and writing, and rudimentary reading and writing skills, (iv) Dominant attentional directional preferences in a society, not directly related to reading direction, (v) Direct spatial-numerical learning, (vi) Other spatial-directional processes independent of reading direction. In this mini-review, we will differentiate between these processes, elaborate when in development they might emerge, discuss how they may create the SNAs observed in preliterate children and propose how they can be studied in the future.

Native reading direction influences lateral biases in the perception of shape from shading

Although neurologically normal individuals often exhibit leftward biases of perception and attention, known as pseudoneglect, factors such as lighting, spatial location and native reading direction have been found to modulate these biases. To investigate lighting and spatial biases in left-to-right and right-to-left readers search times were measured in a target finding task where lighting and target locations were manipulated. Target search times under upper-left lighting were significantly shorter than lower-left, upper-right and lower-right lighting among left-to-right readers. Right-to-left readers did not display the same leftward bias, even displaying significantly shorter search times under upper-right lighting than those of left-to-right readers. Significantly shorter search times for targets located in the upper-left quadrant (compared to other quadrants) were observed for left-to-right readers, while search times for upper-right located targets were significantly shorter for right-to-left readers compared to those of left-to-right readers. Participant scan times of stimuli divided into equal quadrants were monitored by an eye-tracking camera. Both groups displayed greater scan times in upper quadrants. These findings suggest that native reading direction modulates spatial and light perception biases resulting in weaker leftward, or a lack of lateral biases among right-to-left readers.

Attentional Processing of Letter Strings by Children

Reading a letter string requires attentional orienting toward the beginning of the string (left-dominant orientation), followed by orienting along the string. These attentional-orienting processes differ according to the lexicality of the letter string: Sequential processes apply when reading nonwords or pseudowords, while words can be processed more globally. The aim of this study was to evaluate the development of these attentional processes involved in reading. We conducted two experiments in 6- (first grade), 7- (second grade), and 9-year-old (fourth grade) children, using a procedure that required the detection of a letter (Experiment 1) or a nonletter (Experiment 2) target in a string of five characters. The target character could occur in the second (left) or fourth (right) position in the string. Results showed an advantage for left nonletter targets as early as age 6 and of left letter targets as early as age 7. In 6-year-olds, only good readers detected a left letter target faster than a right letter target; others detected a right letter target faster. Thus, dominant orienting toward the beginning of the letter string is not fully developed in children before the second year of reading. A possibility is that beginning readers have difficulties inhibiting an attention-orienting bias toward the right visual field in linguistic tasks. The results also showed that the lexicality effect on these attentional processes develops gradually until the fourth year of reading. We believe that the procedure used in this study will be very valuable for evaluating attentional difficulties during reading acquisition.

Behavioural asymmetries on the greyscales task: The influence of native reading direction

Reliable leftward attentional and perceptual biases demonstrated in a variety of visuospatial tasks have been found to deviate from the left in research examining the influence of scanning habits. The aim of the current research was to examine the influence of native script direction on pseudoneglect during the greyscales task in a representative sample of native right-to-left readers. Fifty-four native left-to-right readers and 43 right-to-left readers completed the greyscales task, which required judging the darker of two left-right mirrored brightness gradients. Native left-to-right readers demonstrated a left response bias on the greyscales task, whereas right-to-left readers failed to demonstrate a bias, however, both groups responded more quickly when making leftward choices. The research suggests that the strength of attentional biases are influenced by behavioural biases, such as scanning habits, and neural and anatomical asymmetries in the right parietal and frontal cortices. Thus, to improve the clinical utility of the greyscales task for diagnosing neglect, right-to-left readers should be examined to fully understand the normal range of biases displayed by neurologically healthy individuals.

Reading direction shifts visuospatial attention: an Interactive Account of attentional biases

A growing amount of evidence confirms the influence of reading and writing habits on visuospatial processing, although this phenomenon has been so far testified mainly as a lateralized shift of a single behavioral sign (e.g., line bisection), with lack of proof from pure right-to-left readers. The present study contributed to this issue by analyzing multiple attentional and motor indexes in monolingual Italian (i.e., reading from left-to-right), and monolingual (i.e., reading from right-to-left) and bilingual Israeli (i.e., reading from right-to-left in Hebrew but also from left-to-right in English) participants' visuospatial performance. Subjects were administered a computerized standard star cancellation task and a modified version in which English letters and words were replaced by Hebrew ones. Tasks were presented on a graphics tablet, allowing recording of both chronometric and spatial parameters (i.e., measured in (x, y) vector coordinates). Results showed that reading direction modulated the on-line visuomotor performance (i.e., left-to-right vs. right-to-left shifts) from the beginning (i.e., first mark) to the end of the task (i.e., spatial distribution of omissions and subjective epicenter). Additionally, the spatial bias observed in a computerized line bisection task was also related to the participants' habitual reading direction. Overall, the results favor the proposal of an Interactive Account of visuospatial asymmetries, according to which both cultural factors, such as the directional scanning associated with language processing, and biological factors, such as hemispheric specialization, modulate visuospatial processing. Results are discussed in light of recent behavioral and neuroanatomical findings.

Native Reading Direction and Corresponding Preferences for Left- or Right-Lit Images

The first language an individual learns has been shown to influence performance on cognitive tasks. Individuals who first learn to read and write in a left-to-right direction (native left-to-right readers) tend to bisect lines left of centre and draw counterclockwise circles, whereas those who learn to read and write from right-to-left (native right-to-left readers) will bisect lines closer to the objective centre and draw circles in a clockwise direction. The aim of the current study was to assess group differences in image preferences and eye movements when participants are simultaneously presented with an original and mirror image with an obvious illumination difference. Twenty native left-to-right readers (4 men, 16 women) and 25 native right-to-left readers (13 men, 12 women) participated. Left-to-right readers made more fixations on the left side of images and exhibited a significantly different left-lit image bias than right-to-left readers' choices. These results draw attention to the influence that reading direction has on scanning distributions and lighting preferences, and question previous results finding no difference between groups.

How Culture, Age, and Manual Dominance Affect Directionality in Drawing Side View Objects

The aim of the present experiment was to investigate the extent to which the orientation of objects drawn in side view is a function of culture, age, and manual dominance. Right-handed French and Syrian children aged between 6 and 10 years and right-handed adults from the same cultural groups were asked to produce side views of faces, vehicles (car and airplane), self-centered tools with a handle (mug and toothbrush), object-centered tools with a handle (jug and hammer), and animals (dog and fish) using their dominant and nondominant hands. The French participants exhibited a leftward directional bias, whereas their Syrian counterparts displayed a rightward bias. However, no differences between the two cultural groups were observed in the 6-year-olds, who did not present any systematic directional bias in their drawings. Furthermore, regardless of culture, the children did not modify the orientation of the objects in their drawings as a function of the hand used, whereas the hand effect was strong in adults. Finally, despite their directional bias toward the right, the Syrian participants tended to draw the self- and object-centered tools facing leftward. These results are discussed with reference to the current literature on this topic.

Nature or nurture in finger counting: a review on the determinants of the direction of number-finger mapping

The spontaneous use of finger counting has been for long recognized as critical to the acquisition of number skills. Recently, the great interest on space–number associations shifted attention to the practice of finger counting itself, and specifically, to its spatial components. Besides general cross-cultural differences in mapping numbers onto fingers, contrasting results have been reported with regard to the directional features of this mapping. The key issue we address is to what extent directionality is culturally mediated, i.e., linked to the conventional reading–writing system direction, and/or biologically determined, i.e., linked to hand dominance. Although the preferred starting-hand for counting seems to depend on the surveyed population, even within the same population high inter-individual variability minimizes the role of cultural factors. Even if so far largely overlooked, handedness represents a sound candidate for shaping finger counting direction. Here we discuss adults and developmental evidence in support of this view and we reconsider the plausibility of multiple and coexistent number–space mapping in physical and representational space.

Lateral organisation in nineteenth-century studio photographs is influenced by the direction of writing: a comparison of Iranian and Spanish photographs

The direction of reading has been found to have a significant effect upon aesthetic preference, with left-to-right readers showing a preference for stimuli with a rightward directionality while right-to-left readers prefer stimuli with a leftward directionality. This study looks at a large set of posed, studio photographs to study the cultural interaction between direction of reading and lateral organisation, comparing a corpus of 735 nineteenth-century photographs from Iran (right-to-left reading) with a similar corpus of 898 photographs from Spain (left-to-right readers). Five separate types of composition were studied: linear ordering, usually by height; couples; individuals posing by a chair; individuals posing by a table; and portraits. Lateral preferences were found for all five types of photograph, with the lateral organisation of Iranian photographs being the reverse of that in the Spanish photographs. These data provide support for the influence of direction of reading upon aesthetic organisation in naturalistically produced photographs.

Script Directionality Affects Depiction of Depth in Representational Drawings

This research examined the influence of directional reading/writing habits on the representation of depth in a scene. Participants with English vs. Arabic language backgrounds were asked to represent an imagined scene containing two houses, a “near house” and a “far house.” Nearly all participants drew the near house larger than the far house and drew the near house before drawing the far house. However, significant group differences in spatial strategies and movement biases were noted. Whereas the majority of native English readers drew the near house on the left side of the page and the far house to the right of it, native Arabic readers showed a slight right bias in placement of the near house and tended to place the far house to the left of the near house. This effect of script direction characterized right-handed and left-handed users of each group. Taken together, the findings support a cultural account of asymmetries in representational drawing reflecting biases arising from prolonged experience in reading and writing in a particular direction.

Cultural differences in drawing movements between right-handed Japanese and German participants

Differences in drawing movements with the dominant and nondominant hands by 41 right-handed students from Japan (9 men, 12 women; M age = 20.3 yr., SD = 1.4) and Germany (13 men, 7 women; M age = 23.4 yr., SD = 3.0) were investigated. Participants were asked to use each hand to draw a circle, a pentagon, and a rhombus in one stroke. Analysis showed that Japanese participants drew a circle clockwise with the dominant right hand, starting from 6 or 7 o'clock on the face of a clock, while the German participants drew the circle counterclockwise, starting from 11 or 12 o'clock. Moreover, when drawing a pentagon and a rhombus with the right hand, Japanese participants drew counterclockwise from the top-center vertex, whereas almost half of German participants drew clockwise from the left side and others drew counterclockwise from the top-center vertex. Using the left hand, no significant difference was found in starting positions or directionality. Cultural differences in the starting positions and directionality when using the dominant right hand probably reflect the influence of writing habits on the drawing movement of the dominant hand.

Spontaneous mapping of number and space in adults and young children

Mature representations of space and number are connected to one another in ways suggestive of a 'mental number line', but this mapping could either be a cultural construction or a reflection of a more fundamental link between the domains of number and geometry. Using a manual bisection paradigm, we tested for number line representations in adults, young school children, and preschool children. Non-symbolic numerical displays systematically distorted localization of the midpoint of a horizontal line at all three ages. Numerical and spatial representations therefore are linked prior to the onset of formal instruction, in a manner that suggests a privileged relation between spatial and numerical cognition.

Egocentric reference in bidirectional readers as measured by the straight-ahead pointing task

The present study aimed to show that bidirectional reading and language exposure influence the position of egocentric reference (ER), the perceived direction of the body's sagittal axis proposed to act as an anchor for movements in extracorporeal space. Directional factors (e.g., visual scanning bias and reading habits) have been proposed to influence visuospatial performance, such as in line bisection and figure drawing. In past studies, bidirectional readers have been less consistent in demonstrating a bias compared to unidirectional readers. Using a straight-ahead pointing task to assess egocentric reference, we compared 14 unidirectional left-to-right readers (Uni-LR) to three bidirectional reading groups that differed in the reading direction of their native language and/or the level of their second language literacy: 16 low-English literate, native right-to-left, bidirectional readers (Lo-Bi-RL), 13 high-English literate, native right-to-left, bidirectional readers (Hi-Bi-RL), and 15 native left-to-right, bidirectional readers (Bi-LR). Participants were asked to point straight-ahead while blindfolded using either a left-to-right or a right-to-left scanning direction to approach the subjective sagittal midline. Uni-LRs showed left-side spatial bias when scanning left-to-right and right-side bias during right-to-left scanning, Bi-LRs and Lo-Bi-RLs (i.e., intermediate level or less in their second language) demonstrated the opposite pattern, and Hi-Bi-RLs showed left-side spatial bias regardless of scanning direction. Results are discussed in terms of accuracy and spatial bias regarding the interaction between reading direction and spatial cognition based on the level of bidirectional literacy and language exposure.

The Effect of Explicit Cultural Bias on Lateral Preferences in Tunisia

Hand, eye and foot preferences in Tunisia were examined in relation to age, gender and geographic location. We analyzed 1291 questionnaires from 653 men and 638 women, aged 8 to 74 years. Despite the cultural pressure against the use of the left hand for food-related activities, the overall frequency of left-hand writers (10.9%) was comparable to that found in the Western world. The frequency of left-hand writers was higher for subjects with one left-handed parent, and even higher for subjects with two left-handed parents than for subjects whose parents were right handed. The frequency of left-hand writers dropped to 5.9% in the older age-group; it was found to be higher in Tunis, the largest and most Occidental city, than in other cities, while left-hand eating was lower in the South than in the Center or in the North. The frequency of left-footers also dropped in the older age groups and was higher in Tunis than in other cities. Eye preference, consistency of preferred-hand use, crossed hand-eye laterality, crossed hand-foot laterality and gender-related differences in lateral preferences were all comparable to Western results. These data suggest that lateral preferences are partly influenced by a genetic factor, but that handedness (and to a lesser degree footedness) emerges from the intricate interaction of several factors including genetic and cultural influences.