TY  - JOUR
A1  - Pinhas, Michal
A1  - Shaki, Samuel
A1  - Fischer, Martin H.
T1  - Heed the signs: Operation signs have spatial associations
JF  - The quarterly journal of experimental psychology
N2  - Mental arithmetic shows systematic spatial biases. The association between numbers and space is well documented, but it is unknown whether arithmetic operation signs also have spatial associations and whether or not they contribute to spatial biases found in arithmetic. Adult participants classified plus and minus signs with left and right button presses under two counterbalanced response rules. Results from two experiments showed that spatially congruent responses (i.e., right-side responses for the plus sign and left-side responses for the minus sign) were responded to faster than spatially incongruent ones (i.e., left-side responses for the plus sign and right-side responses for the minus sign). We also report correlations between this novel operation sign spatial association (OSSA) effect and other spatial biases in number processing. In a control experiment with no explicit processing requirements for the operation signs there were no sign-related spatial biases. Overall, the results suggest that (a) arithmetic operation signs can evoke spatial associations (OSSA), (b) experience with arithmetic operations probably underlies the OSSA, and (c) the OSSA only partially contributes to spatial biases in arithmetic.
KW  - Mental arithmetic
KW  - Mental number line
KW  - Operational momentum
KW  - Pointing
KW  - Spatial-numerical association of response codes effect
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.892516
SN  - 1747-0218
SN  - 1747-0226
VL  - 67
IS  - 8
SP  - 1527
EP  - 1540
PB  - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY  - Abingdon
ER  -