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concepts come into a great variety ranging from numbers to emotions, from social entities to mental states, and refer to heterogeneous experiences (e.g., Ghio et al., 2013, Dreyer & Pulvermuller 2018, Desai et al., 2018, Villani et al., 2019). According to Multiple Representation Views, and in particular according to the Words As social Tools (WAT) theory (Borghi et al. 2018, 2019), linguistic and social experiences are crucial for abstract concepts acquisition and representation: abstract concepts are typically acquired through language (Wauters, et al., 2003) and thanks to the support of others (i.e., social metacognition, Borghi et al., 2019). Given their highly complexity, abstract concepts are also more variable than concrete concepts within and between individuals. Recent literature has indeed underlined the necessity to study abstract concepts and words in real-context situations rather than through isolated settings (Barsalou et al., 2018). The present work focuses on institutional concepts, like norms and duty. It is conceived as an ideal follow up of a recent study on institutional concepts (Villani et al. under review), in which we collected rating on sub-categories of abstract concepts (i.e., institutional and theoretical) and concrete concepts (i.e., food and tools) provided by people with different expertise. The study showed the peculiarity of institutional concepts, and shed light on the fine-grained differences between “meta-institutional” concepts (e.g., justice) characterized as socially constructed terms, and “pure-institutional” concepts (e.g., parliament) perceived as more similar to technical tools. Importantly, it also suggested that institutional concept representation varies as a function of individual life experience (e.g., expertise in the law field). This study intends to test the WAT proposal investigating whether the exposure to linguistic and social situations influence the processing of specific sub-categories of abstract concepts (i.e., institutional and theoretical) and concrete concepts (i.e., food and tools), and whether individual differences emerge. To this aim, we decided to use a priming task with a go-nogo paradigm. The study will be performed online. Participants experts and non-experts in the law field (Law-groups vs. Control-group, respectively) will be presented with a list of target-words preceded by a picture-prime, that are social-action (e.g., dance together), linguistic-social (e.g., chatting with a friend), linguistic-textual (e.g., reading a book) and control (a landscape), and were required to press a button only if the words do not denote a planet or atmospheric and astronomical phenomena. The characteristics and criteria selection of prime and target stimuli are detailed below. Materials Selection and Analysis Prime stimuli. A total of 60 pictures were selected from Google Images. Of these, 10 depicted two people performing a joint action, such as dancing or carrying a sofa (social-action prime); 10 represented two people talking (linguistic-social prime), 10 showed a person reading a book (linguistic-textual prime), 10 were landscape (control), 10 depicted a person interacting with a tool and 10 a person interacting with a food (included as filler). The selected pictures were balanced for brightness, size, gender, and age of characters. In order to create a set of prime stimuli more representative for each prime condition, we asked 73 participants, who will not participate at the pre-registered study, to rate each picture using a 7-point Likert scale for three different scales: social scale (“how much the image evokes a situation of social interaction”); linguistic scale (“how much the image evokes a situation of linguistic interaction”) and physical scale (“how much the image evokes a situation of physical interaction”). For each scale, a multidimensional scaling analysis was conducted to evaluate the distances between the pictures across all scales. For each prime, two pictures that minimize the distance (highly similarity) on the critical scale and maximizing the distance (highly dissimilarity) in the other scales were selected, according to the following criteria: - Social-action prime: highly similarity in social scale and highly dissimilarity in physical and linguistic scales. - Linguistic-social prime: highly similarity in linguistic scale and highly dissimilarity in physical scale, but with a minimum distance in social scale. - Linguistic-textual prime: highly similarity in linguistic scale and highly dissimilarity in physical and social scale. - Control: two pictures that obtained low scores in social, linguistic, and physical scale. Target stimuli. Target stimuli consist of 80 words: Half of them will be nogo-trials and the other half go-trials. The nogo-trials include 40 words that denote planets, atmospheric and astronomical phenomena (e.g., Jupiter, snow, eclipse). The go-trials were composed by four sub-groups of abstract and concrete concepts. Abstract concepts include 10 institutional (e.g., marriage, contract) and 10 theoretical concepts (e.g., energy, multiplication) already used in the previous norming study (Villani et al., under review). Concrete concepts include 10 food (e.g., bread, carrot) and 10 tool concepts (e.g., lamp, knife) selected from Barca et al., (2002) database. The selected go-trials were balanced across the main psycholinguistic variables that are word length, number of syllables, absolute frequency and level of concreteness. Specifically, a one-way ANOVA showed that the four-categories did not differ in word length (F(3) = 2.058; MSE = 9.358; p = .123), numbers of syllable (F(3) = 1.431; MSE = 0.867; p = .250) and absolute frequency on books (F(3) = 1.495; MSE = 569.767; p = .232), as determined by Colfis, a lexical database of written Italian (Bertinetto et al., 2005). Importantly, the sub-categories differ in the level of concreteness (F(3) = 26.080; MSE = 139520.892; p

Previous research investigating handle-response compatibility effects with graspable objects used different categories of objects as stimuli, regardless of their specific, intrinsic characteristics. The current study explores whether different types of objects’ characteristics may elicit different types of spatial compatibility, that is, handle-response and response-effect compatibility as well as their potential interaction. In Experiment 1, objects having a graspable handle opposite to either a visible functional component (i.e., handle-function objects: a teapot) or a latent functional component (handle-only objects: a pitcher lacking the spout) were presented separately in different blocks. Both the handle and the goal-directed functional components of these objects were located on the horizontal axis. In Experiment 2, handle-only objects had a handle located on the horizontal axis and a latent functional component located on the vertical axis (e.g., a cup). In both experiments, participants were required to judge the material (plastic and metal) the object was made of. Results showed that the handle-response compatibility effect was sensitive to whether the actions consequences of object manipulation took place on the horizontal rather than on the vertical axis.

Questo studio indaga la relazione tra i movimenti del nostro corpo e l’elaborazione numerica andando a studiare l’asse di movimento circolare. I partecipanti dovevano contare aggiungendo o sottraendo ‘tre’ mentre eseguivano dei movimenti circolari, in direzione oraria o antioraria, in modalità attiva (camminando) oppure in modalità passiva (venivano spinti su una sedia a rotelle). I risultati hanno messo in luce la presenza di una relazione tra l’elaborazione numerica e la direzione del movimento circolare, sia in condizioni di movimento attivo che passivo, ma solo per le addizioni e limitatamente ai partecipanti maschi. This study investigates the relationship between the movements of the whole body and numerical calculation, such as additions and subtractions. Starting from previous evidence on the horizontal and vertical axes, in the present study participants were required to count by adding or subtracting 'three' while performing a motion on the circular axis (i.e., a clockwise or counterclockwise movement), in an active (i.e., walking) or passive mode (i.e., being pushed on a wheelchair). Results showed the presence of a relationship between numerical processing and the direction of the circular movement, both in an active and passive movement condition, but only for additions and only for male participants. Implications of the results for theories of embodied cognition are discussed.

Supplemental material, Supplementary_appendix for Visual versus auditory Simon effect: A behavioural and physiological investigation by Stefania D’Ascenzo, Luisa Lugli, Giulia Baroni, Roberto Guidotti, Sandro Rubichi, Cristina Iani and Roberto Nicoletti in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Recent studies suggest that covering the face inhibits the recognition of identity and emotional expressions. However, it might also make the eyes more salient, since they are a reliable index to orient our social and spatial attention. This study investigates (1) whether the pervasive interaction with people with face masks fostered by the COVID-19 pandemic modulates the processing of spatial information essential to shift attention according to other’s eye-gaze direction (i.e., gaze-cueing effect: GCE), and (2) whether this potential modulation interacts with motor responses (i.e., Simon effect). Participants were presented with face cues orienting their gaze to a congruent or incongruent target letter location (gaze-cueing paradigm) while wearing a surgical mask (Mask), a patch (Control), or nothing (No-Mask). The task required to discriminate the identity of the lateralized target letters by pressing one of two lateralized response keys, in a corresponding or a non-corresponding position with respect to the target. Results showed that GCE was not modulated by the presence of the Mask, but it occurred in the No-Mask condition, confirming previous studies. Crucially, the GCE interacted with Simon effect in the Mask and Control conditions, though in different ways. While in the Mask condition the GCE emerged only when target and response positions corresponded (i.e., Simon-corresponding trials), in the Control condition it emerged only when they did not correspond (i.e., Simon-non-corresponding trials). These results indicate that people with face masks induce us to jointly orient our visual attention in the direction of the seen gaze (GCE) in those conditions resembling (or associated with) a general approaching behavior (Simon-corresponding trials). This is likely promoted by the fact that we tend to perceive wearing the mask as a personal safety measure and, thus, someone wearing the face mask is perceived as a trustworthy person. In contrast, people with a patch on their face can be perceived as more threatening, therefore inducing a GCE in those conditions associated with a general avoidance behavior (Simon-non-corresponding trials).