Background

1
Individual Differences in Embodiment
Andrew Jones, Tyler Hubbard, Dallas Swindell,
Emily Shields, William Langston Middle
Tennessee State University

• Background
• The problem we are addressing is best expressed
  in the graphs below

• Results
• Task differences
• Is performance on the semantic relatedness task
  related to performance on the iconicity task? We
  split participants on the basis of performance on
  the iconicity task (low M -31.67, SD 319.08
  high M 647.67, SD 330.21). We computed the
  interaction between iconicity performance (low,
  high) and semantic relatedness (correct
  iconicity, incorrect iconicity). The interaction
  was significant, F(1, 79) 4.94, MSE 15418, p
  .03. There was not a semantic relatedness
  effect for low iconicity participants, there was
  a reversed semantic relatedness effect for high
  iconicity participants, t(40) 2.34, p .02.
• Is performance on the currency rating task
  related to performance on the iconicity task? The
  interaction between iconicity performance and the
  currency rating task (light, heavy) was
  marginally significant, F(1, 81) 3.17, MSE
  124.93, p .08. There was not an effect in the
  currency rating task for low iconicity
  participants, the effect was reversed for high
  iconicity participants, t(41) -1.88, p .07.

Figure 1. Semantic relatedness judgment, t(82)
-1.01, p .32, d 0.08.
Figure 2. Iconicity judgment, t(82) -6.05, p lt
.001, d .49.
Figure 3. Currency rating, t(87) -0.81, p
.42, d .09.

• These are the results for three embodiment tasks,
  the data are sorted by the size of the effect,
  with participant number on the x-axis. In all
  cases, a positive number indicates an embodiment
  effect.
• As is apparent in the data, there is considerable
  variability in the direction and size of the
  effect. Our goal is to explain this variability.
  We considered three potential sources for the
  differences
• Task differences
• Differences in the stimuli
• Differences between the participants.
• Our primary focus here will be differences
  between participants.

• Tasks
• Input embodiment Some aspect of the environment
  creates a perceptual or motor simulation that
  changes responding.
• Semantic relatedness The task is from Zwaan and
  Yaxley (2003) as modified by Louwerse and
  Jeuniaux (2010). Participants saw 32 pairs of
  semantically related items that also had an
  up-down iconic relationship (e.g., foam-beer).
  There were also 32 unrelated filler pairs.
  Participants judged whether or not the words in
  each pair were related. For the related pairs, 16
  were presented in their correct orientation, 16
  were reversed (e.g., beer over foam). Zwaan and
  Yaxley found that it took longer for participants
  to judge pairs that were presented in reverse
  order. Louwerse and Jeuniaux found that a
  linguistic factor (order frequency) accounted for
  participants reaction times better that
  iconicity.
• Iconicity judgment The task is from Louwerse and
  Jeuniaux (2010). Participants saw 32 pairs of
  items, 16 in their correct orientation, 16 in
  their incorrect orientation, and judged whether
  they were in the correct arrangement. Louwerse
  and Jeuniaux found that iconicity significantly
  affected response times.
• Output embodiment The way that a participant
  holds their body affects responding.
• Currency rating Participants held a light
  clipboard (approximately 400 g) and a heavy
  clipboard (approximately 1250 g). On the
  clipboards were lists of currencies, participants
  rated the value of the currencies. Jostmann,
  Lakens, and Schubert (2009) found that
  participants rated currencies as having more
  value when they were holding a heavier clipboard.

Figure 4. Iconicity X Semantic Relatedness
interaction.
Figure 5. Iconicity X Clipboard Task interaction.

• Individual differences
• Participants scoring in the top and bottom thirds
  on each individual difference measure were
  compared using t-tests.

ERQ-R ERQ-S O C E A N LOC NA PA PBC QMI SCS-Pr SCS-Pu SCS-SocAnx SSS TAS
Semantic Relatedness 3
Iconicity 1 4
Currency 2
1t(53) 2.22, p .03, 2t(55) 1.72, p .09,
3t(54) 2.45, p .02, 4t(51) -2.24, p .03

• Discussion
• Task differences
• There is reason to suspect that the different
  embodiment tasks are tapping into different
  mechanisms. (The stimulus variables need to be
  incorporated into this analysis.)
• Individual differences
• There were surprisingly few relationships between
  individual difference measures and embodiment
  tasks. In part, this could be due to the
  relatively low power (88 total participants).
  However, out of the 136 possible correlations
  between the various individual difference
  measures, 41 were significant.
• The differences that we did find are consistent
  with aspects of the embodiment tasks (e.g., an
  input driven task like iconicity is related to
  absorption).

• Individual differences measures
• Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) Measures
  emotion regulation strategies with two subscales
  reappraisal (six items) and suppression (four
  items), rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7
  (strongly agree) (Gross John, 2003).
• Five Factor Personality Scale (FFP) Taken from
  the IPIP website (http//ipip.ori.org) described
  in Goldberg, Johnson, Eber, Hogan, Ashton,
  Cloninger, and Gough (2006). A 50-item scale from
  the Big Five 5 broad domains (http//ipip.ori.or
  g/newBigFive5broadKey.htm) measuring five
  subscales extraversion, agreeableness,
  conscientiousness, emotional stability,
  intellect 10 items per subscale, rated from 1
  (very inaccurate) to 5 (very accurate).
• Locus of Control (LOC) Measures the extent to
  which participants ascribe events to internal or
  external control 29 items, participants choose a
  or b indicating internal or external control
  (Rotter, 1966).
• Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)
  Measures positive and negative affect 20
  adjectives (10 positive, 10 negative), judged as
  to how participants feel this way now, rated
  from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5
  (extremely) (Watson, Clark, Tellegen, 1988).
• Private Body Consciousness (PBC) Measures the
  extent to which people attend to private aspects
  of their body available only to them five items,
  rated from 1 (disagree strongly) to 6 (agree
  strongly) (Miller, Murphy, Buss, 1981).
• Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery (QMI) Measures
  imagery on seven subscales visual, auditory,
  cutaneous, kinesthetic, gustatory, olfactory,
  organic five items per subscale, rated from 1
  (no image present at all) to 7 (perfectly clear
  and as vivid as the actual experience) (Sheehan,
  1967 Betts, 1909).
• Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS) Measures public
  and private self-consciousness. Three subscales
  private self-consciousness (10 items), public
  self-consciousness (seven items), and social
  anxiety (six items), rated from 1 (extremely
  uncharacteristic of me) to 5 (extremely
  characteristic of me) (Fenigstein, Scheier,
  Buss, 1975).
• Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS) Measures sensation
  seeking, a personality traitthat expresses as a
  need for physiological arousal, novel experience,
  and a willingness to take social, physical, and
  financial risks to obtain such arousal
  (Stephenson, Hoyle, Palmgreen, Slater, 2003, p.
  279). The BSSS-4 contained one item for each of
  four subscales summed to produce a total score
  items were rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5
  (strongly agree).
• Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS) Measures
  absorption experiences characterized by a
  special attentional object relationship which can
  be described by such terms as absorption and
  fascination. These terms suggest a state of
  total attention during which the available
  representational apparatus seems to be entirely
  dedicated to experiencing and modeling the
  attentional object (Tellegen Atkinson, 1974,
  p. 274). There are 29 items rated as true or
  false. (Used with permission http//www.upress.um
  n.edu/test-division/to-order)

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