The Mechanism Of Action Observation On The Effect Of Emotional Cost Linkage In Left And Right Space

It was obvious that there was an association of emotional valence with horizontal physical space.According to the body-specificity hypothesis,this association is related to the handedness.People associate positive entities with the side of space surrounding the dominant hand and negative entities with the space surrounding the non-dominant hand.So the right-handers have the pattern of right-good/left-bad.This association based on the long-term asymmetric motor experience.Previous studies found some factors could affect the association.On the one hand,through direct action training to make actors manual motor fluency temporarily changing could reverse the pattern of association.On the other hand,through action observing also could influence the association of the observers.The association of actors overturned because of manual motor fluency temporarily changing.What is the reason for the association of observers overturned?Action embodied simulation emphasize that overt imitation of others' action is common,and appears to be highly automatic.Whether the mechanism underlying the observed action affects association is that the observers embodied simulated manual motor of actors in the action training phase?Three experiments were conducted in this present study toward replicating and exploring the mechanism underlying the observed action affects association between horizontal space and valence.In experiment 1,we made the right-handed participants to complete the a Chinese version of the "Bob goes to the zoo" task adapted from Casasanto(2009)which was the paper and pencil test about the association of valence and space.In order to verify the Chinese university students also have the preference to connect good with the dominant hand and bad with the non-dominant hand.Experiment 2 based on the experiment 1 further explore that action training and action observing influenced the association.Experiment 2 included two phases:action training phase and test phase.In the first phase,we assigned one participant(the actor)to perform a bimanual fine motor task while another participant(the observer)watched behind the actors with their hands free and placed in front.Actors were assigned to wear a ski glove on the right hand to arranged dominos upright on the surface quickly as possible for 12min,which made performing the action on this right side of space disfluent.In the test phase,both actors and observers need to complete the paper and pencil test as the same as the experiment 1.The only difference between the experiment 3 and experiment 2 was the observers' hands needed to be limited and place behind when they observed the actors in the action training phase in experiment 3.We wanted to explore that whether the observers had the different result for the action observe with their manual motor ability limited.To clarify the mechanism underlying the observed action affects association between horizontal space and valence.The result of the experiment lwas that the majority of right-handed participants placed their like animals with the right hand and dislike animals with the left hand,which is the "bad left and good right" pattern between space and valence.The experiment 2 results that participants assigned to be actors,who first performed a bimanual fine motor task with their right hand encumbered by a bulky glove,later associated "good" with the left hand and "bad" with the right hand in a subsequent diagram task.Observers who stood behind the actors during the motor task with hands free and placed in front,showed a nearly identical pattern of responses as the actors.The experiment 3 results that participants assigned to be actors showed nearly identical pattern of responses as the actors in experiment 2,however observers who stood behind the actors during the motor task with hands limited and placed behind,showed nearly the opposite pattern of responses from the actors they observed and the observers in experiment 2.They associated "good" with the right hand and "bad" with the left hand just like the usual performance.This study concluded that(1)Although the association between horizontal space and valence based on the long-term asymmetric motor experience.manual motor fluency temporarily changing could overturn the pattern of association.(2)Action observing also could influence the association and the reason was the observers embodied simulated manual motor of actors in the action training phase.(3)To clarify the mechanism underlying the observed action affects association between horizontal space and valence as well as provided the experimental support for the embodied simulation about action observe.