TY  - JOUR
A1  - Shaki, Samuel
A1  - Fischer, Martin H.
A1  - Goebel, Silke M.
T1  - Direction counts A comparative study of spatially directional counting biases in cultures with different reading directions
JF  - Journal of experimental child psychology
N2  - Western adults associate small numbers with left space and large numbers with right space. Where does this pervasive spatial-numerical association come from? In this study, we first recorded directional counting preferences in adults with different reading experiences (left to right, right to left, mixed, and illiterate) and observed a clear relationship between reading and counting directions. We then recorded directional counting preferences in pre-schoolers and elementary school children from three of these reading cultures (left to right, right to left, and mixed). Culture-specific counting biases existed before reading acquisition in children as young as 3 years and were subsequently modified by early reading experience. Together, our results suggest that both directional counting and scanning activities contribute to number-space associations.
KW  - Counting
KW  - Numerical cognition
KW  - Reading direction
KW  - Number-space association
KW  - Mental Number
KW  - Cross-cultural
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2011.12.005
SN  - 0022-0965
VL  - 112
IS  - 2
SP  - 275
EP  - 281
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  -