Mental Number Representations in 2D Space
- 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 smallThere 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.…
Author details: | Elena SixtusORCiDGND, Jan LonnemannORCiDGND, Martin H. FischerORCiDGND, Karsten WernerGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00172 |
ISSN: | 1664-1078 |
Title of parent work (English): | Frontiers in Psychology |
Publisher: | Frontiers Research Foundation |
Place of publishing: | Lausanne |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2019/02/05 |
Publication year: | 2019 |
Release date: | 2019/02/20 |
Tag: | Go/No-go task; SNARC; horizontal space; spatial-numerical associations; vertical space |
Volume: | 10 |
Number of pages: | 11 |
Funding institution: | Universität Potsdam |
Funding number: | PA 2019_15 |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Bildungswissenschaften |
DDC classification: | 1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Grantor: | Publikationsfonds der Universität Potsdam |
Publishing method: | Open Access |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |
External remark: | Zweitveröffentlichung in der Schriftenreihe Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe ; 538 |