@misc{10481/96050,
year = {2015},
month = {12},
url = {https://hdl.handle.net/10481/96050},
abstract = {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.},
publisher = {Springer Nature},
title = {Reading direction causes spatial biases in mental model construction in language understanding},
doi = {10.1038/srep18248},
author = {Román, Antonio and Flumini, Andrea and Lizano, Pilar and Escobar, Marysol and Santiago De Torres, Julio Ramón},
}