Accessing the asymmetrical representations of causal relations and hierarchical relations in semantic memory

Abstract

Recent studies of causal relations have reported faster verification if two words appear in “cause–effect” order than if they appear in “effect–cause” order. The current study investigated whether such differences are specific to causal relations or exist for other types of asymmetric relations, such as hierarchical relations. Participants were asked to decide whether two simultaneously presented words were causally related or hierarchically related, when the word pair was vertically aligned (Experiment 1) or horizontally aligned (Experiment 2). Both causal and hierarchical relationships were verified faster if “cause”/“superordinate-level” appeared vertically above “effect”/“subordinate-level” than the reverse. However, if word pairs were presented horizontally, only causal relationships were verified faster when cause preceded effect. People appear to represent the causal asymmetry based on temporal order when queried about causal relationships, whereas the representation of hierarchical asymmetry is based on spatial arrangement when queried about hierarchical relationships.

Keywords:

• Asymmetry
• Causal relations
• Hierarchical relations
• Spatial representation

Thanks to the two anonymous readers for their suggestive comments on the initial version of this manuscript.

This study was supported by an NNSF grant [grant number 31100740], [grant number 31271088]; the National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number BBA080047]; the MOE Project of Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Universities [grant number 11JJD190002] and the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China [grant number 20100182110021].

Thanks to the two anonymous readers for their suggestive comments on the initial version of this manuscript.

This study was supported by an NNSF grant [grant number 31100740], [grant number 31271088]; the National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number BBA080047]; the MOE Project of Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Universities [grant number 11JJD190002] and the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China [grant number 20100182110021].