The Bias toward the Right Side of Others Is Stronger for Hands than for Feet
As shown by a series of previous studies, ambiguous human bodies performing unimanual or unipedal actions tend to be perceived more frequently as right-handed or right-footed rather than left-handed or left-footed, which indicates a perceptual and attentional bias toward the right side of others&rsquo
How Much Money Do You Need to Feel Taller? Impact of Money on Perception of Body Height
Body height is considered to be one of the most important reproductive signals. However, there are only a few publications on what influences the sense of whether we assess ourselves as tall or short. In the present contribution, the psychological impact of money on the evaluation of a person’s own height was tested. We performed two experimental studies in which the respondents had contact with different amounts of money and were asked to evaluate their body height with the use of a laser pointer. The first experiment (N = 61) showed that contact with money significantly increased subjective height evaluation, and the effect was independent of participants’ real body height. The second exp…
Guessing Meaning From Word Sounds of Unfamiliar Languages: A Cross-Cultural Sound Symbolism Study
Sound symbolism refers to a non-arbitrary relationship between the sound of a word and its meaning. With the aim to better investigate this relationship by using natural languages, in the present cross-linguistic study 215 Italian and Polish participants were asked to listen to words pronounced in 4 unknown non-indo-European languages (Finnish, Japanese, Swahili, Tamil) and to try to guess the correct meaning of each word, by choosing among 3 alternatives visualized on a computer screen. The alternatives were presented in the mother tongue of participants. Three different word categories were presented: nouns, verbs and adjectives. A first overall analysis confirmed a semantic role of sound…