Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
L u c i a C o l o m b o I a n d Philip H. K. S e y m o u r 2
The processing oJ two spatial terms which reJer to proximity and distance, near and far, was
investigated in a word-picture comparison task. Two alternative hypotheses were tested,
one based on the notion of linguisticmarkedness and supporting the positive status o f far,
and the other based on semantic-pragmatic factors and proposing that near is the positive
member oJ the pair. An analysis of the true-Jalse decision latencies indicated that near was
generally verifiedJaster than far in judgments in which the terms were used to describe both
ego-to-object and object-to-object distance. A third experiment addressed the question of
whether the advantage obtained in the verification oJ near may be accauntedJor in terms oJ
the priority oJ the interpersonal dimension oJ representation relative to the objective one.
The results are discussed with regard to the semantic representation oj the two words.
INTRODUCTION
EXPERIMENT 1
Method
The experimenter recorded errors via the keyboard, and the trials on
which these occurred were repeated at a later point in the sequence.
Procedure. Subjects were given preliminary practice in the use of the
apparatus by presenting the word yes or no on the screen and requiring
them to respond by pushing the appropriate key. The task was then ex-
plained as one which involved either: (1) the matching of the words near
or Jar against the apparent distance of the large (NEAR) or small (FAR)
squares (Group 1), (2) the matching of the words large or small against
the LARGE or SMALL squares (Group 2), or (3) the matching of the
words long or short against the apparent (NEAR or FAR) distance of the
shapes from the observer (Group 3). Following practice on the task, a
sequence of 64 trials was presented, involving 16 presentations of each of
the four word-shape combinations. Errors and other failures were re-
corded and the trials on which they occurred replaced. The trials were
randomized for each subject.
Results
Table I. Mean "True" and "False" Reaction Time (in msecs) and Error Rates in
the Ego-to-Object Verification Task (Experiment 1)
Discussion
the order of 200 msec) in the time required to verify "true" or "false"
items containing small and/or SMALL, by comparison with " t r u e " items
containing large, may be attributed to the presence of a negative com-
ponent in either the marked or perceptual representation of the former,
and suggests that the increase in the amount of processing time required
for the encoding of the marked term relative to the unmarked one is about
the same as for the negative transformation of the response code. A
similar trend is observed in the near-Jar condition, that is, an increase of
about 250-300 msec for both affirmative and negative responses to com-
binations with jar by comparison with affirmative responses to near/
NEAR. This seems to suggest that Jar behaves like the marked member of
the pair, and that the representation embodies the relation "non-
proximal" rather than "distant."
A more intriguing result is that found with the adjective pair long-
short; although the difference was not significant, there is a clear ten-
dency for combinations containing short to be verified faster than those
with long. This suggests that, although the two terms normally refer to
distance, an interpretation in terms of proximity is rendered appropriate
by the requirements of the task, and an additional stage of processing may
be carried out above or beyond that involved in matching combinations
with near and Jar, whereby size is first given in terms of proximity and the
latter code is then transformed into one for distance (long/short).
At this point we shall consider the hypothesis that the faster verifica-
tion of near and short combinations by comparison with Jar and long ones
occurs on account of the presence of a positive feature in the representa-
tion of the large version of the figure. This interpretation would require an
effect of size on both positive and negative responses, whereas no effect
was evident in the latter case; a finding which will be discussed at greater
length below. It is instead possible that the advantage found for near
judgments relative to Jar ones depends on which system of representation
is used in the task; when distance is measured with respect to the self, the
privileged relation may be "proximity," while for the interobject distance
the predominant relation may be "extent of separation" between the
objects. If the latter situation obtains, one would expect an advantage for
jar judgments over near ones. However, if the relation of "proximity" is,
whatever the situation, more central in the representation of near-jar than
that of "distance," then the advantage of near over Jar should also be
found in a task in which interobject judgments are made with respect to
distance.
Representation of "Near" and " F a r " 83
EXPERIMENT 2
An experiment was carried out in which the terms near and Jar were
matched against the distance between two objects. For those items in-
volving judgments of near the separation of the objects was either small (2
cms) or very small (I cm) while for items with Jar the separation was
either large (6 cms) or very large (12 cms). The different distances were
used in both NEAR and FAR conditions to check for a possible effect on
processing time of scanning the space between the objects. If such an
effect was present, the RTs for both near/NEAR and Jar]FAR judgments
should increase as a function of the distance between the squares, and an
advantage of near over Jar judgments should be most evident when
N E A R is represented by a very small separation, and FAR by a very large
separation. The alternative hypothesis would instead predict that the
smaller the separation of the objects, the easier they should be to judge in
relation to jar, on the assumption that the encoding of the picture would
be facilitated by their greater discliminability.
Method
Table II. Mean "True" and "False" Reaction Times (in ms) and Error Rates for
Object-to-Object Verification with Variation in Object Separation (Experiment 2)
Display
Separation near/NEAR far/FAR near/FAR far/NEAR
associated with the encoding of the figures since the effect of separation
on responses to FAR figures depends on which lexical item is involved in
the comparison. Reduction in the distance between the squares has a
marked effect when the subject verifies items containing Jar (i.e., on a
J a r / F A R trial) but not when he verifies ones with near (i.e., on a near/
F A R ) trial.
The results obtained in Experiment 2 confirm that near is easier to
process than jar, suggesting that even when the system in terms of which
the judgment is made does not take the self as reference point but instead
refers to interobject separation, the representation of the situation is in
terms of proximity, rather than distance, such that near and Jar take
positive and negative values, respectively, on the dimension concerned.
Had the magnitude of separation been interpreted in terms of small or
large distance in Experiment 2, then near would presumably have
functioned as the marked term, so that comparisons between it and the
figures would have taken more time than in Experiment 1, where, on both
perceptual and pragmatic grounds, it could be regarded as possessing
positive features. However, no such effect occurred (mean RTs for the
verification of near being 833 msec in Experiment 2 and 861 msec in
Experiment 1). On the other hand, although a negative feature in the
representation of small objects could account for the larger reaction time
for f a r [ S M A L L judgments (1150 msec in Experiment 1), it is not sufficient
to explain the overall advantage of near, since the prediction in the case of
the condition where near is matched with small separation would have
been of a reversal of the effect in favor of far.
EXPERIMENT 3
Method
Results
Table III. Mean "True" and "False" Reaction Times (in ms) and Error Rates for
Object-to-Object Verification with Variation of Object Size (Experiment 3)
Display
Square size near/NEAR far/FAR near/FAR far/NEAR
Table IV. Mean "True" and "False" Reaction Times (in ms) and Error Rates for
Ego-to-Object Verification with Variation in Object Separation (Experiment 3)
Display
Separation near[NEAR far/FAR near/FAR far/NEAR
responses (F = 4.8, dJ = 1,13; p < .05). Follow-up tests suggested that the
only point at which separation exerted a consistent effect was on negative
responses to Jar/NEAR displays, where the RT was facilitated if the
shapes were close together.
Discussion
The aim, in this experiment, was to test the hypothesis that the
egocentric system is dominant in the representation of proximity. It was
anticipated that a variation in object size would intrude on judgments of
object-to-object separation, in such a way that large size would facilitate
near/NEAR judgments, and small size facilitate Jar/FAR judgments. At
the same time it was not expected that an irrelevant variation in object-to-
object separation would interfere with judgments of object-to-ego proxi-
mity.
The results obtained did not completely confirm these expectations.
Although presentation of large squares did facilitate near/NEAR judg-
ments, the converse effect of small size on JarlFAR judgments was not
observed. Moreover, variations in size had no effect on the negative
response reaction times. However, if the influence of size variation is due
to an effect occurring in the picture encoding stage, one would expect it to
be symmetrical, that is, for large object size to facilitate NEAR and inhibit
FAR judgments, and conversely for small size. Furthermore, an effect
related to picture encoding should have been evident on "false" trials as
well as on " t r u e " trials.
The results obtained suggest that the perceptual representation of an
object is not simply a function of the latter's physical characteristics, but
is to some extent constrained by the semantic features of the accompany-
ing verbal item. The concept activated when a word is presented may
Representation of "Near" and " F a r " 89
contain features which are more or less congruent with the characteristics
of the figure. If this match does not occur, or if the characteristics of the
object only partially match the concept to be verified, an increase in the
amount of processing time may be required. Interference may occur when
a feature which is a constituent of the concept to be verified but not
relevant to the task at hand, becomes activated. It may be that, in the
context of interobject separation, the semantic representation of prox-
imity is based on features related both to intrinsic properties of the objects
(e.g., size), and to properties of the space between them (e.g., amount of
separation), and that both become active on presentation of the verbal
item. In the representation of distance, on the other hand, only the sepa-
ration of the two objects is encoded. Thus, when near is to be compared,
both separation and size are encoded giving rise to the possibility of
interference of one with the other. A near~NEAR display containing large
squares will be assigned a positive value on the active dimensions, and no
conflict will occur, whereas a near~NEAR display containing small
squares will be assigned a negative value on the size dimension, so that
the presence of concurrently active features of opposite polarity may
require an increase in the amount of processing time. In the verification of
jar, on the other hand, the feature relating to the size of the objects will
not have been activated and will not, therefore, produce interference.
When size is the dimension relevant to the task (as in the second
condition of Experiment 3) and separation varies, interference would only
be expected if both dimensions of distance (ego-object and object-object)
had the same "weight," or in terms of the preceding argument, the same
degree of activation. As no interference was obtained in the aforemen-
tioned task, either in the verification of near or in the verification of Jar, it
can be argued that relations in egocentric space take precedence over
those in objective space. The only effect obtained in the matching of Jar
with objects of different size was an increase in the RTs, which was also
found in Experiment 1 and was there attributed to the additional process-
ing required to encode size in terms of distance.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The aim of this study was to investigate the semantic structure of the
antonymous pair near-Jar. As in the case of other bipolar adjective pairs,
the opposition may be thought of in terms of a scale lying between two
poles or extremes, with the unmarked term lying at the positive end and
the marked term at the negative end. However, in the case of near~jar, it
90 Colombo
is not clear which term lies at the "positive" end, and it was the purpose
of the experiment reported to examine this issue both in relation to ego-
centric usage of the term, where reference is made to the proximity of an
object to the self, and in relation to object-to-object usage. According to
the conventional linguistic analysis, applied to either the ego-object or
object-object situation, f a r is the unmarked term and, in a picture-word
comparison task should be matched faster than the marked term near.
Alternatively, one could argue, on semantic-pragmatic grounds, that near
is endowed with a positive feature, through its association with closeness
on the interpersonal dimension, where the position of the self is (in
Clark's terms) that of "canonical" reference point. On the latter view, the
status of near and Jar may not be constant, but could depend on the
situation, so that the positive feature might shift from one term to the
other according to which system of representation is appropriate to the
task at hand, giving near a processing time advantage in the egocentric
system, and j a r in the interobject system.
The results of all three experiments suggest that the representation of
near is, in general, positively defined. The advantage found for near was
greatest in Experiment 1, where size was used as a cue for egocentric
distance, suggesting that its positive character derives from perceptual
properties of the referent. According to this interpretation properties such
as size play an important role in the representation of proximity with the
result that the interpretation of large figures as near requires less process-
ing than the interpretation of small figures as Jar, on the one hand, and
short, on the other, where the translation from size to magnitude of sepa-
ration is less direct. However, although the near-jar difference found in
the ego-to-object task may be related to the use of size as a cue for
proximity, this parameter cannot, in general, account for the advantage of
near over Jar. Firstly, the effect was also found in the tasks in which
interobject distance was matched (Experiments 2 and 3). Moreover, the
times required to match near show very little differences in going from
one system of representation to the other (861 msec (Experiment 1), 834
msec (Experiment 3) for the ego-to-object task; 836 msec (Experiment 2),
873 msec (Experiment 3) for the object-to-object task) suggesting that a
similar amount of processing is required to verify near, whether size or
extent of separation are employed as cues. In contrast, the verification of
j a r seems to be sensitive to the type of cue used in the different tasks
(ranging from 915 msec for the object-to-object task (Experiment 2) to
1150 msec for the ego-to-object task (Experiment 1)).
This pattern of results suggests that the linguistically positive
character of near relative to Jar owes something to semantic and prag-
Representation of "Near" and " F a r " 91
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The final version of this paper was written while the first author was on
study leave at the Max Planck Institut fur Psicholingistik (Nijmegen, Hol-
land), supported by a C.N.R. grant. Acknowledgments are gratefully
given to Ino Flores d'Arcais for his extensive criticisms and suggestions,
and to Graham Richardson for substantial help in editing the final manu-
script. Address correspondence to: Lucia Colombo, Istituto di Psi-
cologia, Piazza Capitaniato, Padova.
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