Does Object Size Matter with Regard to the Mental Simulation of Object Orientation?

People have been argued to mentally represent the implied orientation of objects (Stanfield & Zwaan, 2001). However, the effect is rather small in a sentence-picture verification task compared to published effects of other visual dimensions, such as shape, size, and color. The present study examines whether object size moderates the orientation effect. Theoretical considerations of how we interact with manipulable versus non-manipulable objects lead us to predict a smaller effect for manipulable objects than for non-manipulable objects. We furthermore predict the generalization of this pattern across languages (Chinese, Dutch, and English). Furthermore, we seek converging evidence in a picture-picture verification task that compares the verification times between pairs of rotated or non-rotated objects. Longer verification times for large objects would indicate that these objects require more cognitive effort for mental simulation than small objects, regardless of the presence of language.

有学者认为人类在心理上会表征物体所暗示的方向（Stanfield & Zwaan，2001）。然而，与形状、大小和颜色等其他视觉维度相比，在句子与图片的验证任务中，此效应相对较小。本研究旨在探讨物体大小是否调节了方向效应。关于我们如何与可操作物体与不可操作物体互动的理论考量，引导我们预测可操作物体的效应将小于不可操作物体。此外，我们还预测这一模式将在不同语言（中文、荷兰语和英语）中得以泛化。更进一步，我们希望在图片与图片的验证任务中寻找一致的证据，该任务通过比较旋转与非旋转物体对的验证时间来进行。大型物体较小型物体需要更多的认知努力进行心理模拟，这一现象将不受语言存在与否的影响。