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  - Krause, Florian
A1  - Meyer, Marlene
A1  - Bekkering, Harold
A1  - Hunnius, Sabine
A1  - Lindemann, Oliver
T1  - Interaction between perceptual and motor magnitudes in early childhood
JF  - Cognitive development
N2  - Recent research has suggested that all types of size-related information are linked by a generalised system that codes for domain-independent magnitudes. This generalized system is further suggested to be acquired through everyday sensorimotor experiences with contingencies of size-related information in the real world. The aim of the present study was to investigate the existence of this common representation and its impact on the coupling of perception and action in early childhood. According to an embodied view on magnitude representation, an association between perceived magnitude information and size-related motor features, such as applied motor force, should emerge as soon as motor control is sufficiently developed. This hypothesis was tested in 2.5- to 3-year-old toddlers by engaging them in a computer game-like experimental task in which they were required to move objects placed on a platform upwards by pressing a button. The amount of objects was varied systematically (small amount: 3 vs. large amount: 15) and the force children applied on the button while moving the objects was recorded. Importantly, the amount of applied force was not relevant for successfully playing the game. The analysis of the peak force revealed that motor responses were executed more forcefully when children were presented with a large amount of objects compared to a small amount, irrespective of the toddler’s motor abilities which were evaluated by two additional measures (force control and general fine motor skills). This general effect of perceived magnitude information on the task-irrelevant applied motor force confirms our notion that a link between perceptual and motor magnitudes exists already in early childhood and provides new evidence for a sensorimotor grounding of magnitude concepts.
KW  - Perception-action coupling
KW  - Generalised magnitude system
KW  - Embodied cognition
KW  - motor development
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.11.001
SN  - 0885-2014
SN  - 1879-226X
VL  - 49
SP  - 11
EP  - 19
PB  - Elsevier Science
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -