Compatibility and Laterality Effects in Directional Information Displays

Abstract

Stimulus-response (S-R) compatibility effects were examined in a series of experiments investigating mental representations of the directions “right” and “left”. In a simple word-picture verification task, both laterality and S-R compatibility showed strong effects using right-handed subjects. Displays with the term “right” took less time to verify than those with the term “left”, and compatible manual responses were faster than the incompatible. When the task was made more complex, no compatibility effect was found. In two picture verification tasks, laterality effects did not appear but the compatibility effects remained strong. Finally, a similar task was modified to eliminate the S-R compatibility effect, and the right-left directionality effect once again emerged. These results are discussed in terms of the cognitive processes involved in interpreting the spatial terms and in mapping the spatial codes for response.