We often rely on our sense of vision for understanding the spatial location of objects around us. If vision cannot be used, one must rely on other senses, such as hearing and touch, in order to build spatial representations. Previous work has found evidence of a leftward spatial bias in visual and tactile tasks. In this study, we sought evidence of this leftward bias in a non-visual haptic object location memory task and assessed the influence of a task-irrelevant sound. In Experiment 1, blindfolded right-handed sighted participants used their non-dominant hand to haptically locate an object on the table, then used their dominant hand to place the object back in its original location. During placement, participants either heard nothing (no-sound condition) or a task-irrelevant repeating tone to the left, right, or front of the room. The results showed that participants exhibited a leftward placement bias on no-sound trials. On sound trials, this leftward bias was corrected; placements were faster and more accurate (regardless of the direction of the sound). One explanation for the leftward bias could be that participants were overcompensating their reach with the right hand during placement. Experiment 2 tested this explanation by switching the hands used for exploration and placement, but found similar results as Experiment 1. A third Experiment found evidence supporting the explanation that sound corrects the leftward bias by heightening attention. Together, these findings show that sound, even if task-irrelevant and semantically unrelated, can correct one's tendency to place objects too far to the left.

中文翻译：

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与任务无关的声音纠正了蒙眼触觉放置任务中的向左空间偏差。

我们经常依靠我们的视觉来理解我们周围物体的空间位置。如果无法使用视觉，则必须依靠其他感官，例如听觉和触觉，才能构建空间表征。以前的工作发现了视觉和触觉任务中向左空间偏差的证据。在这项研究中，我们在非视觉触觉对象位置记忆任务中寻找这种向左偏差的证据，并评估了与任务无关的声音的影响。在实验 1 中，被蒙住双眼、视力正常的被试使用非惯用手触摸桌子上的物体，然后用惯用手将物体放回原来的位置。在安置期间，参与者要么什么也没听到（无声音条件），要么在房间的左边、右边或前面听到与任务无关的重复音调。结果表明，参与者在无声音试验中表现出向左的放置偏差。在健全的试验中，这种向左的偏见得到了纠正；放置更快、更准确（无论声音的方向如何）。对左偏的一种解释可能是参与者在放置期间用右手过度补偿了他们的伸手可及的距离。实验 2 通过切换用于探索和放置的手来测试这一解释，但发现与实验 1 类似的结果。第三个实验发现了支持声音通过提高注意力来纠正向左偏差的解释的证据。总之，这些发现表明，即使与任务无关和语义无关，声音也可以纠正一个人将物体放置在左侧太远的倾向。