TY  - JOUR
A1  - Sixtus, Elena
A1  - Lindemann, Oliver
A1  - Fischer, Martin H.
T1  - Stimulating numbers
BT  - signatures of finger counting in numerosity processing
JF  - Psychological research : an international journal of perception, attention, memory, and action
N2  - Finger counting is one of the first steps in the development of mature number concepts. With a one-to-one correspondence of fingers to numbers in Western finger counting, fingers hold two numerical meanings: one is based on the number of fingers raised and the second is based on their ordinal position within the habitual finger counting sequence. This study investigated how these two numerical meanings of fingers are intertwined with numerical cognition in adults. Participants received tactile stimulation on their fingertips of one hand and named either the number of fingers stimulated (2, 3, or 4 fingers; Experiment 1) or the number of stimulations on one fingertip (2, 3, or 4 stimulations; Experiment 2). Responses were faster and more accurate when the set of stimulated fingers corresponded to finger counting habits (Experiment 1) and when the number of stimulations matched the ordinal position of the stimulated finger (Experiment 2). These results show that tactile numerosity perception is affected by individual finger counting habits and that those habits give numerical meaning to single fingers.
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-0982-y
SN  - 0340-0727
SN  - 1430-2772
VL  - 84
IS  - 1
SP  - 152
EP  - 167
PB  - Springer
CY  - Heidelberg
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Sixtus, Elena
A1  - Lonnemann, Jan
A1  - Fischer, Martin H.
A1  - Werner, Karsten
T1  - Mental Number Representations in 2D Space
JF  - Frontiers in Psychology
N2  - There is evidence both for mental number representations along a horizontal mental number line with larger numbers to the right of smaller numbers (for Western cultures) and a physically grounded, vertical representation where “more is up.” Few studies have compared effects in the horizontal and vertical dimension and none so far have combined both dimensions within a single paradigm where numerical magnitude was task-irrelevant and none of the dimensions was primed by a response dimension. We now investigated number representations over both dimensions, building on findings that mental representations of numbers and space co-activate each other. In a Go/No-go experiment, participants were auditorily primed with a relatively small or large number and then visually presented with quasi-randomly distributed distractor symbols and one Arabic target number (in Go trials only). Participants pressed a central button whenever they detected the target number and elsewise refrained from responding. Responses were not more efficient when small numbers were presented to the left and large numbers to the right. However, results indicated that large numbers were associated with upper space more strongly than small numbers. This suggests that in two-dimensional space when no response dimension is given, numbers are conceptually associated with vertical, but not horizontal space.
KW  - spatial-numerical associations
KW  - SNARC
KW  - vertical space
KW  - horizontal space
KW  - Go/No-go task
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00172
SN  - 1664-1078
VL  - 10
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Sixtus, Elena
A1  - Fischer, Martin H.
A1  - Lindemann, Oliver
T1  - Finger posing primes number comprehension
JF  - Cognitive processing : international quarterly of cognitive science
N2  - Canonical finger postures, as used in counting, activate number knowledge, but the exact mechanism for this priming effect is unclear. Here we dissociated effects of visual versus motor priming of number concepts. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed either to pictures of canonical finger postures (visual priming) or actively produced the same finger postures (motor priming) and then used foot responses to rapidly classify auditory numbers (targets) as smaller or larger than 5. Classification times revealed that manually adopted but not visually perceived postures primed magnitude classifications. Experiment 2 obtained motor priming of number processing through finger postures also with vocal responses. Priming only occurred through canonical and not through non-canonical finger postures. Together, these results provide clear evidence for motor priming of number knowledge. Relative contributions of vision and action for embodied numerical cognition and the importance of canonicity of postures are discussed.
KW  - Embodied cognition
KW  - Finger counting
KW  - Numerical cognition
KW  - Priming
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-017-0804-y
SN  - 1612-4782
SN  - 1612-4790
VL  - 18
SP  - 237
EP  - 248
PB  - Springer
CY  - Heidelberg
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Sixtus, Elena
A1  - Fischer, Martin H.
T1  - Eine kognitionswissenschaftliche Betrachtung der Konzepte "Raum" und "Zahl"
JF  - Raum und Zahl im Fokus der Wissenschaften : eine multidisziplinäre Vorlesungsreihe
Y1  - 2015
SN  - 978-3-86464-082-7
SP  - 35
EP  - 62
PB  - Trafo
CY  - Berlin
ER  -