The effects of imagined and auditory directionality on spatial biases

Abstract

Representational pseudoneglect refers to a tendency for neurotypical individuals to show a leftward bias when recalling or imagining spatial layouts. This phenomenon is thought to reflect the right hemisphere dominance in visuospatial processing. A related bias, known as perceptual pseudoneglect, is often observed when individuals bisect lines slightly to the left of center on the line bisection task. In contrast, auditory cues have shown rightward spatial bias. Spatial biases were examined in eighty participants using a computerized line bisection task where trials were either uncued or preceded by left-to-right (LTR) or right-to-left (RTL) directional auditory or imagination vignette cues. Prior to the blocks, participants completed VVIQ2, handedness and footedness questionnaires. I hypothesized that LTR-Imagination cues would produce the strongest leftward deviation while RTL-Auditory cues would produce the strongest rightward deviation on the line bisection task. Imagination cues were predicted to induce stronger deviations than auditory cues. A significant leftward bias in the non-cued condition confirmed inherent spatial bias. Paired-sample t-tests showed this bias was significantly attenuated under LTR-Imagination and LTR-Auditory cues. One-sample t-tests revealed that leftward deviation persisted in all conditions except LTR directionalities, contradicting the initial directional hypotheses. Multiple regressions showed handedness significantly predicted deviation under Neutral (N) directionalities and RTL-Auditory cues. Overall, imagination cues produced greater leftward deviation than auditory cues, except in the LTR directionalities, partially supporting one of the hypotheses. These findings highlight modality-specific effects of directional cues on spatial bias and offer potential applications for environmental design and navigational training.