TY - JOUR A1 - Tschentscher, Nadja A1 - Hauk, Olaf A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Pulvermüller, Friedemann T1 - You can count on the motor cortex finger counting habits modulate motor cortex activation evoked by numbers JF - NeuroImage : a journal of brain function N2 - The embodied cognition framework suggests that neural systems for perception and action are engaged during higher cognitive processes. In an event-related fMRI study, we tested this claim for the abstract domain of numerical symbol processing: is the human cortical motor system part of the representation of numbers, and is organization of numerical knowledge influenced by individual finger counting habits? Developmental studies suggest a link between numerals and finger counting habits due to the acquisition of numerical skills through finger counting in childhood. In the present study, digits 1 to 9 and the corresponding number words were presented visually to adults with different finger counting habits, i.e. left- and right-starters who reported that they usually start counting small numbers with their left and right hand, respectively. Despite the absence of overt hand movements, the hemisphere contralateral to the hand used for counting small numbers was activated when small numbers were presented. The correspondence between finger counting habits and hemispheric motor activation is consistent with an intrinsic functional link between finger counting and number processing. KW - Embodied cognition KW - Numerical cognaion KW - Finger counting habits KW - SNARC effect Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.11.037 SN - 1053-8119 VL - 59 IS - 4 SP - 3139 EP - 3148 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - A hierarchical view of grounded, embodied, and situated numerical cognition JF - Cognitive processing : international quarterly of cognitive science N2 - There is much recent interest in the idea that we represent our knowledge together with the sensory and motor features that were activated during its acquisition. This paper reviews the evidence for such "embodiment" in the domain of numerical cognition, a traditional stronghold of abstract theories of knowledge representation. The focus is on spatial-numerical associations, such as the SNARC effect (small numbers are associated with left space, larger numbers with right space). Using empirical evidence from behavioral research, I first describe sensory and motor biases induced by SNARC, thus identifying numbers as embodied concepts. Next, I propose a hierarchical relationship between grounded, embodied, and situated aspects of number knowledge. This hierarchical conceptualization helps to understand the variety of SNARC-related findings and yields testable predictions about numerical cognition. I report several such tests, ranging from cross-cultural comparisons of horizontal and vertical SNARC effects (Shaki and Fischer in J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 38(3): 804-809, 2012) to motor cortical activation studies in adults with left- and right-hand counting preferences (Tschentscher et al. in NeuroImage 59: 3139-3148, 2012). It is concluded that the diagnostic features for each level of the proposed hierarchical knowledge representation, together with the spatial associations of numbers, make the domain of numerical knowledge an ideal testing ground for embodied cognition research. KW - Embodied cognition KW - Grounded cognition KW - Numerical cognition KW - SNARC effect Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-012-0477-5 SN - 1612-4782 VL - 13 SP - S161 EP - S164 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gianelli, Claudia A1 - Ranzini, Mariagrazia A1 - Marzocchi, Michele A1 - Micheli, Leticia Rettore A1 - Borghi, Anna M. T1 - Influence of numerical magnitudes on the free choice of an object position JF - Cognitive processing : international quarterly of cognitive science N2 - The link between numerical magnitude and mechanisms of spatial orienting has been underlined in an increasing number of studies. Similarly, the relationship between numerical magnitude and grasping actions has started to be investigated. The present study focuses on the influence of numerical magnitude processing in the free choice of the position of an object. Participants were presented with a digit (1-9 without 5) and were required to decide whether it was smaller or larger than 5. Then, they had to grasp a small cube and change its position before vocally responding "higher" or "lower". Results showed that in the initial phase of the grasp movement, the grip aperture was modulated by the numerical magnitude. Moreover, participants shifted the position of the cube more leftward with smaller digits compared with larger ones, and they tended to position the object closer to themselves with smaller digits compared with larger ones. These results extend the previous findings indicating that the processing of magnitude is tightly related to the mechanisms of spatial orienting that subserve action execution. KW - Spatial-numerical associations KW - Magnitude processing KW - Hand kinematics KW - Embodied cognition Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-012-0483-7 SN - 1612-4782 VL - 13 SP - S185 EP - S188 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Apel, Jens K. A1 - Cangelosi, Angelo A1 - Ellis, Rob A1 - Goslin, Jeremy A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - Object affordance influences instruction span JF - Experimental brain research N2 - We measured memory span for assembly instructions involving objects with handles oriented to the left or right side. Right-handed participants remembered more instructions when objects' handles were spatially congruent with the hand used in forthcoming assembly actions. No such affordance-based memory benefit was found for left-handed participants. These results are discussed in terms of motor simulation as an embodied rehearsal mechanism. KW - Action simulation KW - Affordance KW - Embodied cognition KW - Rehearsal KW - Sequential instruction KW - Working memory Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3251-0 SN - 0014-4819 VL - 223 IS - 2 SP - 199 EP - 206 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Shaki, Samuel T1 - Spatial associations in numerical cognition-From single digits to arithmetic JF - The quarterly journal of experimental psychology N2 - The literature on spatial associations during number processing is dominated by the SNARC (spatial-numerical association of response codes) effect. We describe spatial biases found for single digits and pairs of numbers, first in the "original" speeded parity task and then extending the scope to encompass different tasks, a range of measures, and various populations. Then we review theoretical accounts before surveying the emerging evidence for similar spatial associations during mental arithmetic. We conclude that the mental number line hypothesis and an embodied approach are useful frameworks for further studies. KW - Embodied cognition KW - Mental arithmetic KW - Numerical cognition KW - Operational momentum KW - Spatial-numerical association of response codes KW - SNARC Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.927515 SN - 1747-0218 SN - 1747-0226 VL - 67 IS - 8 SP - 1461 EP - 1483 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wiemers, Michael A1 - Bekkering, Harold A1 - Lindemann, Oliver T1 - Spatial interferences in mental arithmetic: Evidence from the motion-arithmetic compatibility effect JF - The quarterly journal of experimental psychology N2 - Recent research on spatial number representations suggests that the number space is not necessarily horizontally organized and might also be affected by acquired associations between magnitude and sensory experiences in vertical space. Evidence for this claim is, however, controversial. The present study now aims to compare vertical and horizontal spatial associations in mental arithmetic. In Experiment 1, participants solved addition and subtraction problems and indicated the result verbally while moving their outstretched right arm continuously left-, right-, up-, or downwards. The analysis of the problem-solving performances revealed a motion-arithmetic compatibility effect for spatial actions along both the horizontal and the vertical axes. Performances in additions was impaired while making downward compared to upward movements as well as when moving left compared to right and vice versa in subtractions. In Experiment 2, instead of being instructed to perform active body movements, participants calculated while the problems moved in one of the four relative directions on the screen. For visual motions, only the motion-arithmetic compatibility effect for the vertical dimension could be replicated. Taken together, our findings provide first evidence for an impact of spatial processing on mental arithmetic. Moreover, the stronger effect of the vertical dimension supports the idea that mental calculations operate on representations of numerical magnitude that are grounded in a vertically organized mental number space. KW - Mental arithmetic KW - Numerical cognition KW - Spatial-numerical associations KW - Embodied cognition Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.889180 SN - 1747-0218 SN - 1747-0226 VL - 67 IS - 8 SP - 1557 EP - 1570 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hartmann, Matthias A1 - Martarelli, Corinna S. A1 - Mast, Fred W. A1 - Stocker, Kurt T1 - Eye movements during mental time travel follow a diagonal line JF - Consciousness and cognition N2 - Recent research showed that past events are associated with the back and left side, whereas future events are associated with the front and right side of space. These spatial-temporal associations have an impact on our sensorimotor system: thinking about one's past and future leads to subtle body sways in the sagittal dimension of space (Miles, Nind, & Macrae, 2010). In this study we investigated whether mental time travel leads to sensorimotor correlates in the horizontal dimension of space. Participants were asked to mentally displace themselves into the past or future while measuring their spontaneous eye movements on a blank screen. Eye gaze was directed more rightward and upward when thinking about the future than when thinking about the past. Our results provide further insight into the spatial nature of temporal thoughts, and show that not only body, but also eye movements follow a (diagonal) "time line" during mental time travel. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. KW - Mental time travel KW - Eye movements KW - Mental time line KW - Spatial-temporal association KW - Future KW - Past KW - Embodied cognition KW - Metaphors KW - Mental number line Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2014.09.007 SN - 1053-8100 SN - 1090-2376 VL - 30 SP - 201 EP - 209 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Myachykov, Andriy A1 - Cangelosi, Angelo A1 - Ellis, Rob A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - The oculomotor resonance effect in spatial-numerical mapping JF - Acta psychologica : international journal of psychonomics N2 - We investigated automatic Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect in auditory number processing. Two experiments continually measured spatial characteristics of ocular drift at central fixation during and after auditory number presentation. Consistent with the notion of a spatially oriented mental number line, we found spontaneous magnitude-dependent gaze adjustments, both with and without a concurrent saccadic task. This fixation adjustment (1) had a small-number/left-lateralized bias and (2) it was biphasic as it emerged for a short time around the point of lexical access and it received later robust representation around following number onset. This pattern suggests a two-step mechanism of sensorimotor mapping between numbers and space a first-pass bottom-up activation followed by a top-down and more robust horizontal SNARC Our results inform theories of number processing as well as simulation-based approaches to cognition by identifying the characteristics of an oculomotor resonance phenomenon. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Attention KW - Embodied cognition KW - Eye movements KW - Oculomotor resonance KW - Ocular drift KW - SNARC Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2015.09.006 SN - 0001-6918 SN - 1873-6297 VL - 161 SP - 162 EP - 169 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam 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 - Miklashevsky, Alex A. T1 - Perceptual experience norms for 506 Russian nouns BT - modality rating, spatial localization, manipulability, imageability and other variables JF - Journal of Psycholinguistic Research N2 - A number of new psycholinguistic variables has been proposed during the last years within embodied cognition framework: modality experience rating (i.e., relationship between words and images of a particular perceptive modality-visual, auditory, haptic etc.), manipulability (the necessity for an object to interact with human hands in order to perform its function), vertical spatial localization. However, it is not clear how these new variables are related to each other and to such traditional variables as imageability, AoA and word frequency. In this article, normative data on the modality (visual, auditory, haptic, olfactory, and gustatory) ratings, vertical spatial localization of the object, manipulability, imageability, age of acquisition, and subjective frequency for 506 Russian nouns are presented. Strongest correlations were observed between olfactory and gustatory modalities (.81), visual modality and imageability (.78), haptic modality and manipulability (.7). Other modalities also significantly correlate with imageability: olfactory (.35), gustatory (.24), and haptic (.67). Factor analysis divided variables into four groups where visual and haptic modality ratings were combined with imageability, manipulability and AoA (the first factor); word length, frequency and AoA formed the second factor; olfactory modality was united with gustatory (the third factor); spatial localization only is included in the fourth factor. Present norms of imageability and AoA are consistent with previous as correlation analysis has revealed. The complete database can be downloaded from supplementary material. KW - Embodied cognition KW - Modality rating KW - Spatial localization KW - Manipulability KW - Imageability KW - AoA KW - Word frequency KW - Russian KW - Database Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-017-9548-1 SN - 0090-6905 SN - 1573-6555 VL - 47 IS - 3 SP - 641 EP - 661 PB - Springer CY - New York ER -