Body-specific influences on performance evaluation in realistic dynamic scenes

ABSTRACT

According to the body-specificity hypothesis, left-handers (right-handers) are more likely to associate positive attributes with the left (right) side. We tested whether such body-specific influences also apply to evaluative judgments in realistic dynamic scenes. In two experiments (order counterbalanced), N = 231 participants watched videos from dual mogul competition where two skiers turn downhill through moguls side by side simultaneously and then comparatively rated the skiers’ technical performances. Experiments differed in the required response mode only. In Exp. 1, participants made forced-choice decisions by selecting either the left or right skier as the better performer; in Exp. 2 graded judgments were made on a 10-point scale ranging from −5 (skier on the left side) to + 5 (skier on the right side). Body-specific associations were found in Exp. 1 (OR = 3.16), but not in Exp. 2 (OR = 1.50). A control experiment (Exp. 3; same participants) revealed that our sample (OR = 2.31) behaved similar to previously reported samples in a well-established cartoon character task, thereby confirming body-specific associations in our sample on a task with abstract static stimuli. Collectively, body-specific associations seem to apply to realistic dynamic scenes, particularly when frugal forced-choice decisions are required.

KEYWORDS:

• Embodiment
• motor fluency
• handedness
• judgment
• response mode

Acknowledgment

We thank Lasse Klöfer for his help with data collection.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Additionally, we administered a German version of Oldfield’s (1971) Edinburgh Handedness Inventory using a slightly modified response scheme by asking participants to indicate their hand preference for various tasks on a five-point scale ranging from “exclusively left” (German: “ausschließlich links”), “usually left” (“eher links”), “no preference” (“keine Bevorzugung”), “usually right” (“eher rechts”) to “exclusively right” (“ausschließlich links”). Responses were coded as −10 (exclusively left), −5, 0, 5 or 10 (exclusively right) and summed to obtain a laterality score ranging from −100 (completely left-handed) to + 100 (completely right-handed) (Schachter, 2000).

2 To enhance comparability of the present three experiments’ findings with previous research on body-specificity, we analysed our data similar to Casasanto (2009).

3 We also recorded the time that elapsed from the end of a video until the moment of button press (Exp. 1) and mouse click (Exp. 2), respectively. Comparisons of participants’ median decision times calculated across 20 trials revealed that decisions were made considerably faster (earlier) in Experiment 1 (forced-choice; M = 837.68 ms, SD = 462.56 ms) as opposed to Experiment 2 (graded ratings; M = 2050.94 ms, SD = 851.71 ms), t(222) = 21.47, p < .001, d = 1.44, 95% CI [1.25, 1.62].